Signal Fire
by MintEnergy
Summary: Kara and Lee get one last chance to be together. Begins the moment after Daybreak II, on the hill where Kara didn't say goodbye.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

He stood there for quite a while. The sun continued to rise in the sky, higher and higher. It was so new, so bright, he had to put up a hand to shield his eyes. His fingers slid down, over lashes and cheekbone, erasing the tears-not the pain.

It occurred to him then that for the first time in his life, he had not one thing to do, not one place to go, and no one to care when he got there.

He knew that it should feel good, should feel right. To relax and live and let down his guard. To finally lay his burdens down. It didn't. It felt like…

Lee dropped to his knees and slowly slid back on his elbows, stretching out until he lay spread on the grass with only the sky above. Nothing around, and nothing below. Just blue. It made him dizzy and he shut his sore eyes.

…it felt a lot like dying. Like the numbness of floating through space, watching resurrection being destroyed before him, while he drifted aimlessly through black space, powerless to effect the outcome.

He opened his eyes and glanced at the place where she had last stood, where resurrection had been and was now gone. The blades of grass smelled sweet, brushed his face. The wind whispered it was over, that he could be happy now. He didn't want to hear the lies. He laid there until the sky grew black, or maybe his eyes had drifted shut, or maybe….maybe nothing at all…

The sound of birds calling off in the distance stirred him from the deepest sleep he'd ever had.

_Birds? There aren't any birds in space…_

At least not the kind without turbo-thrust engines.

Lee opened his eyes only a little, squinting against the bright light. He awakened slowly, moment by moment; found himself alone in a field at the break of day.

A new day, a new world.

It was profound in theory, but painful in practice.

"_Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Lee."_

He pushed himself up off the ground in small increments. He didn't need to look around this time; wouldn't go looking for her. No need.

The hot heaviness in his chest pushed down on him, wouldn't let him get up. He fought against it. His shoulders ached, there was no feeling in the arm he'd thrown above his head at some point during the night. The arm was numb, dead.

"_So what about you? What are you going to do?"_

He shook the arm out as he stood, rotating shoulder blades and stretching limbs. He made a fist and the feeling returned. Little stings at first, then the burn.

"_I just know that I am done here."_

Lee shoved the thought away, he didn't want it. Didn't want the burn. Better the numbness instead. He shuffled back in the direction he knew the camp would be. He didn't want to go there, there was nothing there for him. Not even his father would greet him there, share the bad news with him as he'd done on New Caprica. Even his dad's clueless camaraderie would be a welcome relief right now. But where else could he go?

He could see colonials and cylons alike, off in the distance-building new homes, building new lives. People busy like ants, to and fro, walking from ship to ship. Children played together in little groupings, running and laughing. Some of them were so young, they might not have ever seen the sky from below before. They'd never tasted dirt, smelled the grass.

Some had already lit fires and were collecting more wood for various reasons, others were more focused on putting to use the comforts they already had. Lee wondered how many of the ships would stay right where they were while a city went up around them. Perhaps their descendants would one day visit the "Gemenon Traveler Museum" and marvel at how long the structure had been sitting on that piece of land.

Maybe one day… if they survived long enough to have descendants.

They would have to learn to track, to hunt, to grow their own food. They would have to teach their trades to those willing to come behind. Schools would have to be assembled, hospitals would need to be built, proper shelter would need to be constructed. There would be an immediate need for weapons and medicine development. And of course, a sound government would need to be pulled together as soon as possible. Perhaps a government more democratic than constitutional this time?

Lee scrubbed at his face with the palms of his hands. It was too much. And the worst part was, he didn't even think he cared.

"_So what about you? What are you going to do?"_

He stumbled toward his tent, set a little apart from the others. Two squealing little girls chasing a dirt-smeared tiny boy ran past as he entered the shadow of his flimsy shelter. Several men, talking loudly and excitedly made their way around him, hauling a large tree trunk between them.

In many ways, it was already a city. There were already neighbors, already communities.

He placed a hand on the corner pole of the tent and watch them all for a moment. He could just make out Helo and Athena in the distance, busy preparing some dead carcass that had met the business end of their side arms. Hera flitted nearby, slowly edging farther and farther away from them with each twirl. Lee had an irrational urge to march up to them and tell them not to look away. To keep their eyes on the girl.

_Don't let her out of your sight. Don't let her disappear._

The inane chant echoed in his head over and over as he dropped his hand and ducked under the tent's cover. It was cool and dark here. He sat down heavily on the floor, one arm hanging across a bent knee, and stared straight ahead. And there was Kara's gear, lay strewn across the side of the tent. Her rucksack left open to reveal clothing, provisions, books, papers, the personal effects of a person who had never really been there.

He fought for his next breath, found it, and rose up off the ground. A glimmer of tarnished gold lying in the corner of her bag had caught his eye.

He reached in, hand trembling just a little, and pulled out the tiny statue.

_Goddess of the dawn… she brings the morning star and a fair wind. A fresh start._

He stared at the symbol of hope with blurred vision, then carefully slipped it into his pocket.

How could he enjoy a fresh start in a world without her in it? Why would he even want to?

He should probably go clean up now. He should probably go find Lampkin. He should see to it that Tigh knew that Lee's father was gone and he wasn't coming back. He should eat something, gather something, build something…

He lay down on the ground with her gear at his back. Perhaps he should, but he wouldn't. Not today. He would give himself this one day to grieve. The world building could begin tomorrow.

"Dammit," Lee swore, then hissed, then finally just threw the soaked rag down and gave into the pain.

What had he been thinking? Lee Adama, the Great Explorer, indeed. He'd fallen off a low cliff on his first try.

"There is almost absolutely-I'm almost positive-that is to say-there is undoubtedly going to be some sort of valuable ore in those low mountains to the eastern horizon," the man of science had volunteered. And Lee had taken it upon himself to go and check it out. Alone.

"Gaius Frakkin' Baltar," he muttered fiercely.

"I'll drink to that." The gravelly voice startled Lee out his private misery. He looked up in time to see Saul Tigh ducking through the open tent flap. The once colonel helped himself to a seat on the hard ground next to Lee and his scattering of first aid supplies.

Lee went back to cleaning the ugly gash in his shin, "You'd drink to anything."

A conceding grunt was his only reply as Tigh unbuttoned his jacket and settled in for what was clearly going to be a long chat. Lee had witnessed an abundance of those lately. Even though there was more to do now than ever, the sense of life or death urgency was gone, leading to lots of idle chatter and mingling among the colonists. Lee hadn't pegged Tigh for the visiting type, though.

He waited for the older man to get right to the point. Tigh did not disappoint.

"So, heard anything from Bill, yet?" There was a deep sadness in the former XO's gaze but Lee wasn't feeling particularly touchy feely at the moment.

"Oh, sure," He threw down the rag again and reached over to snatch up a half-empty bottle of iodine. "In fact, I have him on the line right now, should I patch you through?"

Tigh made a familiar expression of distaste and looked away.

"I see some things about you haven't changed, Apollo," he drew out some kind of cigarette and contemplated it with his one eye, rolling it between his fingers.

"Sorry," Lee returned quietly, no emotion evident. He tore a strip of linen off of a rapidly diminishing spool, "I know you miss him, too." He looked up and caught Tigh's eye, acknowledging the common ground.

Another grunt was his only reward, but the bond was there now. They didn't have to speak of it again.

"You're keeping to yourself a lot these days," Saul continued after a long silence. He pulled out a lighter and lit his cigarette.

"Not much of an alternative, is there?" Lee shot back, but without any real heat.

Tigh took a long appreciative drag, exhaled the smoke and nodded, "I don't suppose there is."

Another silence passed as Lee tied up the ends of his make-shift bandage and began gathering up the supplies. This time the silence was expectant, as if the old man were deciding how much he should say. Lee grew still and waited patiently.

Tigh finally spoke again, looking him right in the eye, "One day, son, losing her won't hurt so bad. You'll wake up, and the thought of her won't make you want to take your own life. That's when you know the healing's begun."

Lee clenched his jaw, felt his eyes grow hot with that familiar burn. He ran a hand over his jaw and nodded, looking away.

"How long?"

Another pull on the cigarette, another silence finally broken, "Everyone's different."

"I can't imagine what that felt like-to get her back," Lee was embarrassed to hear his voice falter; continued stronger, "…and keep her." He smiled as sincerely as he could.

It was Tigh's turn to look uncomfortable. He stared down at the cigarette in his hand as he spoke, " If you ever need to talk, Lee-"

Lee nodded, cutting in and letting him off the hook, "Thanks." He breathed in raggedly, quietly; kept his face in profile.

They sat there in companionable silence for a while longer.

"There's not even a grave; nowhere to go to remember. She's just...gone." A rough whisper, given with his face turned to the world outside.

Saul remained silent, there was nothing to say.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

"_So what about you? What are you going to do?"_

A tragic, resigned look in his eyes; a memory of his haggard smile.

_Mists of dreams drip along the nascent echo and love no more. End of line._

Starbuck? Apollo. Where are you on dradis?

"_I just know that I am done here." _

I'm trying to get a fix on you…

_So trust me. I'll fly your wing._

"Kara!"

…_Back in the stream that feeds the ocean that feeds the stream…_

Consciousness, returning. There, on the edge of her mind, just out of reach.

_All of this has happened before, and will happen again...again...again...again...again..._

Kara Thrace came awake in her cockpit with the force of a punch in the gut and a blaze of divine light. She took great gasping breaths that hurt her lungs like hell; it felt as if her body had been turned right side out.

…_As my lone existence comes to a close, only to begin anew, in ways uncertain…_

Her instrument panel beeped incessantly in sharp, measured beats. Warning. Pull up now. Warning. Blue flashes like lightening through the cloud cover.

A voice shouting in her ear from the past:

"Pull up now… or your dead."

But she wasn't.

_I'm alive._

Some part of her pulled it together, made her realize she'd like to stay that way. Kara's hand heeded his voice, fell into place. She pulled up with all her strength, the force of the sudden acceleration coupled with the abrupt change in trajectory slammed her back into the seat, she soared upward into the clear and away from the planet's crushing atmosphere. Her breath misted against her helmet shield as she warily looked out the window to the space below. No swirling angry colors in a whirlpool of fate awaited her there. Nothing but clouds and dark sky. But they were familiar clouds, familiar sky. She'd followed a heavy raider through them once...not so long ago.

Struggling through the disorientation, she righted the viper and changed course back to Galactica on pure instinct. She flew on auto, not really watching her panel or answering the shouts over her comm.

A moment ago she'd been standing next to Lee, on a planet so blue, so green, it hurt just to look at it. She had taken them there, all of them, had listened to the music and entered the numbers. So why was she here, now, in _this_ moment?

She could just make out Lee's viper in the distance.

Had it all been a dream? Or was _this_ the dream?

It felt real, but then so had all that had come before. Maybe this was the result of some kind of cosmic reset button? Maybe whoever was in control of all this was having a laugh at her expense. She'd frakked something up the first time and now they were forcing her to keep going through it until she got it right.

Kara hesitated a moment more, breath hitching. A knot heavy and sickening in the pit of her stomach. She cleared her throat then falteringly requested clearance to approach and configured her landing as she'd done a thousand times before. Right now, Kara might not have a place to land, but Starbuck always did.

She shut her eyes and took a long, shuddering breath. It filled her lungs, it burned. Her eyelids fluttered up and she stared out into the blackness of space.

What the_ frak_ was going on here? Because this sure didn't look like any kind of afterlife she'd ever heard of.

_All of this has happened before, and will happen again…_

It hummed in the back of her brain, like a voice in a crowded room that you've subconsciously tuned into above all others.

She gritted her teeth, filled with a strange sort of pain.

"Frak me."

Her viper was still powering down with a familiar hum. She waited impatiently in the cockpit until she was cleared and the windshield slid free. She removed her helmet with shaking hands, and breathed deeply of the familiar scent of Galactica, shaking. She was _this_ close to being sick all over the instruments.

She struggled to disentangle herself from her collar, climbed out of the seat with awkward movements; temporarily robbed of her usual spare grace. She had just managed to hop off the ladder, trip and swear when she saw him.

He was rushing towards her. The sense of having already lived this moment hit her hard.

_Lee, rushing past the cynical crowd. A crowd filled with people who stared and whispered and thought the worst. She hardly had the chance to notice them as Chief's suspicious face disappeared behind Lee's shoulder. Unconditional acceptance, wrapping her up, forcing her to take notice: Lee Adama loves Kara Thrace- and he doesn't care who frakkin' knows_.

"Are you okay?" His voice was hoarse, an almost desperate edge to his words. His words didn't fit in her memory, hauling her back to the present. He was still a few yards away but steadily marching towards her.

Kara turned in a half circle, gaze falling on the familiar, on what should have been the past.

She tried to remember what it had been like before she had gone into that planet's atmosphere and effectively ended her life.

Her thoughts centered on a memory of sitting in the memorial hallway watching the candle wax burn, dripping into the shape of a destiny she still did not fully understand. She'd been hanging by a thread then. Trying so hard to hold the pieces of her together. It seemed like a very long time ago. Like she'd lived another life in the space between. Perhaps she had.

She unzipped her jock-smock with a forceful pull and let the blessedly cool air flow over her heated skin.

If this was just another go around, did this mean she knew what was coming, or was everything going to be different now? What had she ever done to deserve this kind of manipulation?

The confusion threatened to overwhelm her and she bent at the waist, hands on her knees. She swallowed deep, calming breaths. She had never been sick on the flight deck and she wasn't going to start now.

She blew a damp strand of hair out of her eyelashes and stared at the legs of the man that had just stopped before her. She straightened slowly, taking him in, meeting the cobalt blue and the acute concern there with as much dignity as she could pull together in the time it took him to speak.

"What the _hell_ were you thinking, Kara?" Broken, disbelieving. He was breathing hard, helmet tucked beneath his right arm. She could see the cold sweat glistening on his brow beneath the flight deck lights. "You could have been killed."

Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her. She swallowed it, made a sharp little choking sound as tears came to her eyes.

She saw his expression darken, he thought she was mocking him. Or insane. Probably both.

He stepped into her space, close enough to breathe her air. Hers came a little faster then, too, as it always did when he got too close.

"Kara Thrace, I don't know what is going on with you," he whispered fiercely, "But you just gave me_ the_ worst scare of my life."

She hesitated in the face of his anger, lost, then she grinned and hoped he wouldn't notice those hysterical tears she blinked away as she did, "I can't promise it'll be the last."

He swore. His helmet hit the deck with a clunk.

"Can you promise me it'll be the last _today_, Kara?" So severe. She watched his eyes, feeling more vulnerable now than ever. He flinched at her scrutiny and she had a flash of understanding.

He wasn't angry, he was afraid. Afraid at what had just happened. In his mind, he had went to bat for her with the Admiral, kept her on flight duty. And this was how she repaid him. By scaring the hell out of him.

She understood, but it was too much right now. What did he want from her? She'd pulled up eventually…this time.

Kara crossed her arms, barely holding on to herself. Bluffing.

"I don't know, what time is it?" she finally returned, tone almost apologetic.

He exhaled sharply and shook his head, turning away from her, distraught and clearly not having it.

"Lee?" she leaned forward a little further, head weaving until she caught his eye, "I'm sorry…"

He ran a hand roughly across the back of his neck.

She struggled to find words for something that made even less sense to herself, "I just…blacked out for a second there…" she finished lamely.

Another exhale from him. Incredulous, "You just blacked out." He looked away for a moment, then back, leaning in a little further now too. "My gods Kara,you came_ this close…"_

His jaw clenched so tightly, she feared it would shatter the bone, "I _never_ should have let you go up again…if you-"

Kara shook her head, "Lee, it's not your fault-"

He reached up suddenly and laid a hand to the back of her head. As he did, the metallic gleam circling his finger caught her eye. Dee.

"_So how are things with Dee?"_

"…_The best they've ever been."_

He brought her close and fervently pressed his lips to her forehead and she forgot to care.

She inhaled a shuddering breath and breathed him in deeply. This, she knew. This felt familiar, felt right. Always. She reached up and grabbed his upper arms, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Her muscles trembled in protest.

_"__It's funny, after all that we've been through, we are right back where we started…"_

"What am I going to do with you, Kara Thrace?" he whispered, brokenly. So scared for her.

_"__You're the CAG and I'm…I'm you're hotshot problem pilot. I guess that's all we'll ever be now…"_

_The memory pissed her off. They __had__ been more. Just minutes ago, standing on that green planet, they were more. But now it seemed as if only she would remember that journey._ Kara pulled way, frustrated.

_ "Are we done here?" She bit out, running an impatient hand through her damp hair. It was shorter again; it felt thicker, blunt. She'd almost forgotten the feel. It felt…right. Everything, even that, had felt wrong the first time she'd come back from the dead. _

_Maybe __I'm getting better with practice._

_She bit into the fullness of her bottom lip and tried very hard not to cry, or perhaps to laugh manically. She couldn't be sure._

_Guilt? Embarrassment? Hurt? flushed the skin pulled sharply across his cheekbones at her sharp dismissal._

_"I'm sorry," her hand fell lightly on the side of his chest, unsure of how to touch him. She gave him a little shove, "Shouldn't have said it like that." Her eyes pleaded forgiveness. Lee glanced down at her fingers on the front of his flight suit, then slowly back to her eyes. She knew that expression. He couldn't read her, but he was trying to._

_They both became aware of Chief striding towards them and turned in unison. Her hand fell to her side._

_"Everything okay, Major?" Chief parked himself at their side and turned to her, eyes searching hers. Just as Lee's had, but without the tenderness. "Quite a stunt there, Captain."_

_He ran a hand over the viper's pitted surface._

_His forced calm didn't fool her for a second. He, too, was royally pissed at her. Unlike Lee though, it was more the recklessness with the viper-not her life-that pissed him off._

_Kara followed his movements, wondering almost absently if he already realized he was a cylon. She hadn't been on Galactica at this point in time before. What had she missed back then? Did she even care? _

_She didn't realize she'd stayed silent too long until the Chief's eyes narrowed, his dark eyes roaming her face with a measure of concern. Searching for visible signs of the mental illness she'd just exhibited up in the sky?_

_"Captain…Are you alright?" _

_Lee's hand suddenly wrapped around her upper arm as he spoke to the other man, "We'll take care of the post-flight checklists later?" _

_It was more statement than question. She had just enough time to see the Chief nod in agreement before Lee was pulling her forward to fall into line with him. _

_She matched his stride, not even struggling. What was the point? She caught the worried glance Lee slid in her direction. Whether it was due to her possible meltdown, or her easy acceptance of his direction was unclear._

_"So, where we headed?" she tried her best to sound calm and rational._

_"To the infirmary. Doc Cottle's going to have another look at you," he was staring straight ahead again. She sighed roughly though she'd seen this coming. _

_"Great," she muttered, "This should be fun." _

_Could the Doc's examination please tell her what the frak was going on here as well? Because that would be far more helpful than anything he could tell her about her mental health._

_Lee's fingers suddenly flexed on her arm._

_She glanced at his determined profile, felt a rush of messy emotion but reigned it in again._

_"I'm not going anywhere, Lee. You can let go now." _

_"Not a chance."_

_ "Well, everything still checks out physically," the cantankerous, white-haired doctor muttered, pushing off the stool next to Kara's infirmary bed. _

_Cottle glanced at Lee at her side, then shook his head and walked away, holding her chart and a blood sample. He was still muttering as he went and it sounded suspiciously like "Always been damned odd, anyhow..." to Kara's ears._

_She swung her legs over the side of the bed and chanced a glance at Lee. He was watching her, clearly still very concerned._

_"See? All clear, nothing to see here," she said firmly, slapping her palms down on the bed at her sides._

_"I'm still going to have to ground you, Kara. At least for a while. You know that," the words were gentle but firm. No argument. He leaned back against the edge of the bed next to her and crossed his arms._

_She stretched her jaw and nodded. She'd expected nothing less._

_"I hate to do it," he was looking down at the floor, "But I can't chance putting you in the cockpit again when you're…struggling like this."_

_Kara took pity on him. She smiled ruefully, "You've gotta do what you've gotta do, Lee."_

_He stared at her in complete surprise for a moment, then laughed that quiet little laugh she kind of loved, "No, no wait. Hold up." His torso twisted towards her as if he were sharing a confidence, "This is the part where you blow up at me, we have a huge public argument that makes everyone in the room stare and feel uncomfortable, and then I threaten to pull you off flight duty permanently."_

_She gratefully played along, fell into the old rhythm. "Damn," she lowered her eyebrows for a second, staring straight ahead, "I must have missed my cue."_

_There was that laugh again. She felt a little of the heaviness weighing on her chest ease._

_"Kara," they both looked up at the interruption, "I've been looking for you. Are you okay? I heard about what happened..."_

The rush of relief to see him- coherent and sound no less-took all thought from her brain for a moment.

_"Sam," it came out sounding surprised._

_Lee nodded to the other man and straightened to go, "Hey, Sam."_

_"Lee." _

_Sam turned his focus back to her, still clearly worried. _She stared at his mobile, expressive face for a moment then shook off the tragic memories of him that he didn't share.

_"I'm fine now, Sam. Really," she kept her expression open and calm, "Doc says I probably just need more rest." Actually, he'd recommended a psychologist as well, but Sam seemed to accept her answer because his posture visibly relaxed._

_"I've got to get back," Lee caught her eye, "I'm here if you need me." She knew he meant it._

_ Another nod for Sam and he was gone._

_Kara lay in her bunk that night, grounded from flight status until she could prove she was mentally stable, staring up at the rack above her. She was now probably considered truly insane by half of the squadron, most of the deck hands, and all of the CIC. What was new?_

_Kara closed her sore eyes and thought of verdant fields and azure skies__. __Of new beginnings and fresh starts. It hurt to think of it. Of its smell, of its beauty. Of the friend and lover who'd stood beside her.__Of how much she'd wanted to just let it all slip away, free from the bonds of destiny. To lay down beside him there in the grass and stare at the fathomless sky above until she grew dizzy. To do nothing but live for days and days._

_Her chest ached, she swallowed tears of frustration. Deep down, she felt sure she still knew the way to that place, that planet. But what if she couldn't get them back this time? What if they didn't let her?_

_A particularly painful memory resurfaced-lying on the cold, unforgiving brig floor, an unholy scream tearing from her throat. __You're going the wrong way…_

_She wouldn't go through that again.__ She couldn't._

_She rubbed at her tired eyes and tried to drown out the noise of the pilots laughing and screwing around in the bunkroom, mere feet away._

_Someone fell hard against her bunk, shaking the entire frame. __Frak this._

_She yanked her bunk's curtain aside and stuck her head out, frowning fiercely, "Can you mother frakkers please keep it down a little? Some of us are trying to sleep."_

_A couple of pilots snickered, but only Racetrack spoke up, "Sure Captain. Wouldn't want you so tired you go chasing after __invisible__ heavy raiders again." _

_Someone behind Racetrack snickered, "But those are the deadliest kind!"_

_"And, probably the only kind __you__ would be capable of shooting out of the sky, nugget," Kara replied, with a tilt of her head. She stared them all down thoroughly, then disappeared behind her curtain once more. _

_Save a few good-natured chuckles at the nugget's expense, and some whispers along the lines of "She's __finally__ lost her frakking mind completely", the noise died down almost immediately as they all either put in their own rack time or left through the hatch._

_Kara threw herself back onto the thin mattress and went over it again…and again... until she fell into a sort of trance born of exhaustion and uncertainty._

_If all of this has happened before…W__e should be headed for the Ionian Nebula right about now…The rebel Cylons will eventually ally with us because of the final five…Do we still destroy the Hub?….How do we find it this time if I'm on board Galactica?…_

_She ran an absent hand over her hair repeatedly, leaving it sticking out in all directions._

_What if we went after Cavil right now and blew him to kingdom come? Or should we head straight to the new Earth and hope he doesn't follow?... How can we avoid the frakkin' mutiny…I have to protect Sam from that bullet…_

_Her hand fell to her side, blond lashes slowly fluttered shut over hazel eyes._

_"Good luck on your journey, Kara Thrace…I believe you"…But what if this time's different?...What if no one believes me at all?...Or maybe I __have __just lost my frakkin' mind…_

_She finally sank into a dreamless sleep._


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

The scrape of silverware, the clank of the hatch. Someone shouted out a friendly greeting, while another shoved abruptly away from their table. Idle mealtime chatter filled the air with a steady drone. A man let loose with a boisterous laugh, his entire table joining in.

In the midst of the crowd and the noise, Kara sat alone and silent two weeks later. She gazed down at her plate, absently wondering just how much more of the stuff she had now consumed than everyone else in the room. It was a pointless exercise, but it was nice to occupy her mind with something simple and mundane for a little while.

She slumped over in her chair a bit more, poking at the tasteless protein with the tine of her fork. Hopefully that didn't make her seem _crazy_. She was so frakkin' tired of trying. It seemed like the harder she worked to make them believe she wasn't cracking up, the more people refused to believe it. It didn't help that there were moments when even she wasn't sure.

Maybe she had to prove herself if she were going to convince anyone of what she knew, but a large part of her was so tired of this dance. When would she finally be able to sit one out? To live without any worries concerning the frakking fate of the universe or the survival of mankind? How much more of that fight did she even have left in her?

Since her almost-suicide in the sky, Kara had heard the term "burnout" furtively whispered more than once in her wake. She'd been pretty much left to herself like so much damaged goods for most of the time she'd been back._ Not that they know I ever left._

The worst part was, she didn't know how to make them understand what she didn't understand herself. So she let them believe whatever the frak they wanted.

She mashed her algae morsels with a crisscrossing motion and glanced to her left, where a couple of petty officers were discussing Baltar's upcoming trial. It was all anyone was talking about these days. She couldn't bring herself to give a frak about his fate one way or another. She had enough to think about. It felt like everything and everyone had become a factor in an equation that she had to solve.

She finally gave up on the algae and shoved it away with an unwarranted sense of relief. It was at least one less thing to worry about.

"You need your protein, Kara."

She looked up through her bangs to see Sam helping himself to the seat catty-corner from her.

He settled in with an overly serious expression and a plate of algae of his own.

"Sam."

He smiled a little, and pushed her plate back towards her, "You should eat."

Her expression turned skeptical, "Who made you the nutrition police?" Sarcastic, but there was no real bite. Seeing Sam healthy and whole again was enough to knock some of the fight out of her.

"It's an unofficial title ," he replied around a mouthful, "but that doesn't change the fact that you still should eat." He pointed at her plate, while spearing some of his own portion with his fork.

Kara just rolled her eyes and leaned back to watch in amazement as he ate with relish.

"Don't you have any taste buds?"

He kept eating, but shook his head, "Never use them anymore."

She reached for her fork and played absently with the handle," I haven't seen a lot of you lately."

He shrugged, "I thought you might want to be alone-the other pilots made it sound that way…"

Something about the way he said it caught her attention. "You talk to the other pilots a lot these days?"

"Yeah, I'm, uh, thinking about training-to become a viper jock. Like the wife," he sounded uncomfortable, like he expected the news to upset her. "I didn't want to tell you-what with you being grounded and all. Thought it might make you feel worse about things…"

"Don't be stupid," she leaned forward, "I think it's a great idea, Sam."

"You do?" he paused, then started eating again, clearly relieved, "In that case, I already started some training this morning. Nothing major, just learning the little stuff-since their best instructor's taking a little vacation," he gave her a half-smile.

Kara shook her head, "I'm just sorry I wasn't there for all your first-day frak ups. So many opportunities to give you hell…_wasted_."

He acknowledged that with a brief chuckle, then ate in silence for a while. Kara watched the people of Galactica come and go. How many would make it to the end this time? What would the end even be?

"So how are you, Kara, _really_?" She looked back at him. He was watching her now, plate empty in front of him.

She sighed roughly, a look of disgust crossing her features. "Not you too, Sam. It was one incident." She recited wearily, "I thought I saw a raider in the clouds but I was wrong. End of story. It doesn't mean I'm losing my frakking mind, despite what everyone seems to believe."

"I really don't give a frak what 'everyone' thinks. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I just have a lot on my mind, Sam."

"I can see that. The question is, what are you so preoccupied with all of a sudden?"

She stretched out her right leg a little, rocking the empty chair across from Sam with her foot. She watched the chair's motion absently-side to side, side to side.

"What do you mean?"

"You say you're okay, but you're…different."

She turned back to him, alert now, "Different how?"

He shrugged again, looking thoughtful, "Hard to say. I just know something's changed."

A part of her wanted to laugh at the understatement. He had no idea. Then the concern in his eyes got through to her and she felt a stab of sympathy. Things looked so differently when you've already lived through them. Sam was at a disadvantage. She looked at him for a moment, remembering.

"I've been the worst kind of wife to you," she didn't even know she was going to say it until the words were already out.

He looked surprised , but rolled with the change of subject admirably, " Maybe," he paused, searching for the right words, "But maybe I don't care."

She smiled a soft, sad smile, looking away, "Maybe you should, Sammy."

There was a very long silence.

"It's over isn't it?" His expression was a curious combination of resignation and resentment.

She went back to rocking the chair with her foot, "Hasn't it been?"

"You tell _me_, Kara. I'm not the one who calls _you _whenever I need a-"

"Sam," she interrupted before they made this into something ugly when it didn't have to be, "I love you. I really frakkin' do." She saw him visibly calm, focus on her words. "You have no idea…" _A bullet to the head, a promise by her hand… you are _my_ Sam…"_How much_."_

"Then why-" he began. But she knew what he was going to say.

"Because. It's both too much and not enough, Sam," she interrupted.

He shook his head," That makes no frakkin' sense, Kara."

"It does to me." She stared at him, willing him to understand, "I love you. Enough to know you deserve more than I have to give."

It was a hard thing to say but it didn't change her gut feeling that it was the right thing as well. And if there was one thing she wanted after losing him in the way that she had, it was to do the right thing by him.

His expression sharpened, "Because you're in love with someone else."

She turned away, annoyed, "I've never said that."

"You've never had to," he made as if to leave, but seemed to change his mind. He leaned back and crossed his arms, "You know what the worst part is, Kara?"

She looked up at him, spoke quietly, "What, Sam?"

"I can't even hate you for it," he shook his head, "You just won't let me."

The corner of her lips pulled up, her eyes stung, "Yeah…I can be a real bitch like that." She drew a circle on the table with the tip of her finger.

He breathed a laugh and rubbed his face with his hands. Several moments passed, only the surrounding din of the crowd filled their silence. Then he laughed again in earnest. The sound startled her.

Her brows lowered, "What's so funny?"

He chuckled a bit more, then got out, "These tattoos…they're _so frakking big_."

She turned away quickly, choking on her sudden desire to laugh along with him.

She composed herself and turned back, "Guess we should have gone with jewelry after all."

They stared at each other for a beat and then they both choked on a laugh, wiping their eyes. It seemed wildly inappropriate, considering, but Kara figured sometimes you just had to laugh or you'd cry. She was pretty sure they were doing both, though neither would own to it.

Her quiet laughter died out as she caught sight of a familiar figure entering from across the room. She casually dropped her gaze back to the table.

Sam glanced back over his shoulder to see what had caught her attention. He looked back at her.

"Oh."

She shook her head, reached to take a drink of her water, "It's not what you think, Sam."

She'd wanted to approach him for days but something held her back. Fear? Confusion? Maybe a little bit of both.

But underneath all that was another feeling–one she recognized. It was the same feeling she'd had after finding her charred corpse in that blackened shell of a cockpit on Earth. If anyone would understand, if anyone would know what to do, if anyone would accept her…it would be him.

"I have to ask him a favor. And it's…kind of a big favor."

"Like asking him to leave his wife? That kind of big?" Sam's cynicism was back, laughter forgotten.

_No, Sam. Like believing this frakked up story I have of coming back from the dead… and then coming back again… I'm going to ask him to help me convince everyone that I can take what's left of humanity home…Because I've already done it. _That_ kind of big._

It seemed even crazier when she thought it through like that. She should have just stuck with the gut feeling.

She'd been silent for too long. Sam's tone took on a slight edge as he spoke, "Why don't you ask him right now, Kara? Want me to flag him down for you?"

Kara threw Sam a look out of the corner of her eyes, refusing to dignify that

with a response. She turned back and calmly took another drink of water, staring stonily ahead.

He sighed raggedly after a time, suddenly repentant, "Whatever it is? Just ask him Kara. The answer is yes." He rose from the table, leaving his empty plate behind. He pushed in his chair.

She turned her head slowly to look at him, acknowledging his unnecessary apology.

"How can you be so sure?"

"He can't deny you anything. He's literally incapable of it." Sam stared at her. There was still anger in his eyes, but there was a touch of acceptance there too, "I know the feeling."

She watched silently as he walked away.

The guilt tore at her gut, and she clenched her jaw as she whispered, "I'll make it up to you, Sam." _You'll get your happy ending. That bullet doesn't stand a chance._

Another two weeks later, Kara stood alone in the dimly lit weight room. Her left arm snapped out to its straightened length. Jab. Recoil.

If there was one thing she hated, it was feeling helpless, useless. No amount of physical exertion was going to eliminate her frustration, but it beat the hell out of staying in her bunk, staring at the rack above her.

She'd gone for more than a few runs in the past twelve days, to clear her head, think it all through. She'd spent some time at the firing range. Yesterday, she'd finally joined some other pilots in a few hands of triad, folded on every one. Her heart wasn't in it.

Her right fist flew diagonally across her midsection, sinking into the layers of leather, foam, and sand with a satisfying thud she could feel down to the balls of her feet. Her shoulder ached in protest; she ignored it. Left hook. Exhale.

Mostly her thoughts centered on Earth- the new one. The planet she should still know the way to, if anyone would give her the chance to try. For what felt like the millionth time, she cursed the fate that had thought it was a good idea to give her an _instinct_, a vague notion of where their new home inhabited space. So much easier to simply scribble out some frakking coordinates and hand them to the Admiral on a slip of paper.

Kara lifted her weight to her right foot, balanced; threw out her left leg. Her shin met the leather with a snap of contact. It hurt like hell. She began the entire sequence again, counting out the rhythm.

Of course, knowing her luck, there was a chance he would look down at the solid proof and still not believe her.

Yeah, she figured she was probably frakked either way. She guessed it was a good thing she was used to playing with those odds.

The hatch wheel turned, the sound of heavy metal unhinging from heavy metal startling her from her troubled thoughts.

Distracted now, she threw a punch that should have been a jab, lost the rhythm.

She looked up, steadying the swaying punching bag with both gloved hands.

He stepped over the threshold, his gaze fell on her, unsurprised to find her here. He'd been looking.

He was in uniform, pressed and tucked and polished. Sharp.

Kara swept her arm across her forehead, slick with sweat, breathing hard.

"Lee."

He had a sheaf of papers and a clipboard under one arm. His eyes looked tired.

She stripped off her gloves while he sat down on the edge of the weight bench, watching her.

"Hotdog said I could probably find you here."

Kara just shrugged, smoothing back the damp strands of hair at her temple with the top of her shoulder. It didn't take a genius. There weren't a lot of places for her to go.

She began unwrapping her hands with concise, practiced movements, "Haven't seen a lot of you lately, Major."

He looked up at her steadily, "I saw you in the mess hall a couple of weeks ago. It looked like your were in deep conversation with Sam, though. I didn't want to interrupt."

She nodded, though she wasn't convinced.

"I came by your quarters the other day, " he continued, "They said you had gone for a run three hours before and hadn't been back."

"Is that a big frakking deal? What else am I supposed to do right now? I can't fly my viper, can't do my job-"

"Have you been to see that psychologist, Kara?" She could see how much he'd hated to ask her that.

Kara shook her head, spoke bluntly, "No."

"Kara-"

"Lee, even if he examines me and thinks I'm crazy, what's the point? He would have thought the same thing on the day you first met me. Hell, on the day I was born."

A reluctant smile pulled at his lips. She had him there.

"Kara, I know you're going through a tough time right now-"

"And how would you know that?" she broke in. "You haven't even seen me for almost a month."

His expression fell, "Kara, President Roslin has requested that I head the preliminaries for Baltar's trial…"

Kara tossed the discarded bandaging strips in a little pile with her gloves and looked askance at him.

He continued more briskly, "On top of that, the trial itself has increased the need for security, transport." His expression took on a look of distaste, "Baltar's keeping everyone pretty busy."

It would suit Kara just fine if security got _decreased_ instead. Quite frankly, the memory of Gaius Baltar outing her as some sort of angel on the crowded hangar deck didn't really inspire the warm fuzzies.

He mistook her silence for something else, "I'm sorry, Kara."

She shook her head. She hadn't expected him to baby-sit her.

"It's fine, Lee."

He stood, sighing roughly, "No, it isn't. It's just that I'm spread a little thin right now-"

"So let me help."

She wasn't sure why she'd said it. She certainly wasn't in the mood to argue with him about her flight status. But damn if she wasn't tired of having other people tell her what she was and wasn't. Couldn't she be allowed to control this one small thing?

Lee turned aside, studying something off to her left, wearing that stubborn expression she knew all too well.

"Kara, you know I can't do that. I'm not putting you up in the sky until you're ready."

She placed her hands on her hips, "I'm ready."

"We don't know that. And I'm not risking your life to find out."

"You need pilots, Lee, you just said so. And guess what?" she leaned forward for emphasis, "I'm a pilot."

He turned suddenly to face her again, "Kara, last time you went out, you said you couldn't do it, but I pushed you. I convinced you that you _could_ do it. And look at what happened..."

Kara rolled her eyes to the side of the room, frustrated. "That wasn't your fault, Lee. And even if it was-you just said yourself that I knew I wasn't ready. So trust me, trust my instincts. I'm ready."

"Kara," he took a deep breath, "I can't-"

Kara's already frayed nerves pulled tighter. If she couldn't even convince Lee she was capable of flying a viper, how would she convince anyone that she _knew the way to Earth_? It was a frakking nightmare.

She cut him off, "Dammit, Lee- I'm sick to death of everyone telling me what I am and am not capable of!" Her shoulders rose and fell in time with her heated breaths, "When I climbed into that cockpit, I was…working through some things. I don't have to work through them anymore. It's…different now." _Because now I have a whole new set of problems._

But she didn't think he needed to know that just yet.

His eyes and voice took on a stronger edge, "I'm sorry, Kara. But I'm the CAG, and this is still my decision. When the trial is over, I'll have the time to take you out myself. If you still feel good, we'll reinstate you. But not now. I'm not going to just throw you into the frakking cockpit and hope for the best."

She was just this side of shouting at him before she knew it. She just couldn't stop herself. Damn her stubborn streak.

"The trial is just a stupid frakking excuse, Lee! I am sick to death of sitting around on my ass all day just because you're afraid- "

His composure finally snapped, he shouted over her, "I am _not_ going to risk losing you just because Gaius Baltar's lawyer needs his six covered!"

His voice echoed loudly in the isolated room. They stared at each other for a beat too long. He seemed as surprised by his passionate outburst as she was.

He broke eye contact first, glancing down, then back again, "I have to get to the hangar deck." He made to go around her.

Something broke in her as well. Her hand shot out and grasped his arm, effectively pulling him to a halt.

He looked down at the hand on his arm, then glanced up to meet her eyes.

"You are not going to lose me, Lee," she gritted. She took a calming breath and spoke more quietly, "Not this time."

_Not if I can help it._ She was so tired of saying goodbye.

His ensuing expression was hard to read: fear, doubt, confusion, perhaps hope. There was a little anger there as well. He stared at her for what seemed like forever.

"What does that mean, Kara?" He stepped closer to her. Her breath came shallow, there was a strange ache in her chest, like a pull.

"What do those words mean to you?"

She didn't know what to say; what he wanted from her.

He waited in vain, then backed away from her, expression almost pained. He shook his head and turned.

Kara watched him go silently. The hatch sealed shut in the stillness.

She couldn't be certain, but she was pretty sure he'd won every aspect of that entire frakking argument.

She turned back to the punching bag with a grim expression.

Two more endless weeks passed and Kara stood leaning against the bulkhead, arms crossed and staring at the hatch to the Admiral's quarters. She'd started out just going for another late-night jog, which had turned into yet another time of introspection and before she'd known it, she'd found herself headed in this direction.

If this were truly happening all over again-and she was becoming increasingly sure that it was- than she was uncertain what her role should be within it. Was this more of a spectator sport, or was she supposed to actively change something she'd done wrong before? She'd been taught that song when she was a little girl, so she'd always known the way. She just hadn't been aware. She was plenty aware now, but who was ever going to believe her? Especially now when everyone believed she had cracked up and burnt out.

Kara was unsure of a lot of things right now, but she knew this: sitting around on her six and doing nothing was not working for her.

Maybe Adama wouldn't believe her one way or the other, but she had to try. They would soon be approaching the Ionian Nebula and Kara knew there had been hundreds of lives lost there the time before.

If the cylons had turned back the first time because of the Final Five, they might do it again. But as near as she could tell from the feelers she'd put out, Sam and the others were still just as in the dark as ever. Maybe they had to get closer to it?

She didn't know what that meant or didn't mean and frankly, she was tired of caring. Forget the cylons, why not just jump the fleet to Earth and be done with it? Maybe she'd been wrong about a higher power wanting the fleet to get to Earth with the cylons all along. Perhaps that was why she had to do it again; to fix that mistake.

There, she'd talked herself into it. She pushed off the wall.

"Come in, Starbuck."

Kara carefully closed the hatch behind her and walked forward to stand in front of the Admiral's desk and salute. A part of her still wished Lee was standing by her side. For several reasons, but mostly because she felt she would have had a better chance of convincing the Admiral with Lee's support. Well, it was too late now.

Kara stood patiently while he leafed through some papers, adding a signature to a few. She gratefully took in the sight of the closest thing she'd ever known for a father. Her heart broke a little at the thought of her last moments with him on Earth. Of the sight of him carrying his love away to die. He too, like Lee, had deserved more in the end. Why did life demand so much and give so little in return?

The Admiral looked up and smiled a little and she returned it.

"What do you hear, Starbuck?"

"Nothing but the rain, sir," she replied around the lump in her throat.

"Then grab your gun and bring in the cat," he finished, somewhat absently. He looked down, and began rifling again through some papers sitting before him.

She just kept standing still and basked in the familiar warmth of their exchange while waiting for him to finish.

When he did, he folded his hands in front of him and watched her with that keen expression of his, "How are you, Kara?"

She swallowed, nodded a little, "I'm fine, sir. Much better."

He gave her another warm smile, "I'm glad to hear it." He gestured with his head to the model ship sitting proudly a few feet away from them. "She looks good doesn't she?"

Kara dropped her stance and walked over to his masterpiece, reaching out to feather the antiqued gold of the ship's figurehead. She hoped he didn't notice that her hand trembled.

"She does, sir."

A companionable moment passed before either spoke again.

"I suppose you're here about your flight status."

"Actually, sir-"

"I'm going to trust Lee's judgment on this one," he cut in." If he says you're not ready, then I'll have to agree. It's his decision- he's the CAG," his expression softened, "I'm sorry, Starbuck."

"I understand that, Admiral. I do. But I'm doing better now," her lips pulled into a smile she didn't feel, "Really." She hadn't come here about her flight status. But proving to him that her state of mind was sound seemed important either way.

He looked down, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes, "No one wants to believe that more than I do, Kara. But regardless, Lee's decision as CAG stands."

Kara forced herself to be patient, go slow, "Sir, that's actually not why I'm here."

"Well then what is it, Captain? It's very late. I assumed by the hour of your visit that it must be something important to you."

She cleared her throat and tried not to sway on her feet. This was a lot harder than she'd expected.

"Sir, it's a lot more important than my flight status. It's…it's about Earth."

Well. She had his full attention now.

"What about Earth?" 

The words felt familiar, flowed out of her with conviction, "I know where it is."


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

The words felt familiar, flowed out of her with conviction, "I know where it is."

…

Kara watched helplessly as his expression shifted into something she didn't want to see. His fierce frown was intimidating, but not unexpected. Her heart felt like a hot coal thudding in her chest as she waited for inevitable.

"_Kara."_

One word told the story. Fear and concern. Disbelief. Shock and regret. Disappointment. His voice layered her name several times over with the emotions shifting through his eyes.

She struggled to meet those eyes but found she suddenly couldn't. Her head bowed beneath the weight of it. She was guilty of nothing, so why did it feel as if she was?

"Admiral, please…" she spoke to the surface of his desk.

"Kara, what has happened to you?" He threw his glasses down with a careless flick of his hand. The clink sounded loud in the silence.

"How many people do I have to lose?" He spoke as if to himself.

She forced herself to look at him. "But you _haven't_ lost me, Admiral. I know what I'm saying sounds crazy, I know it's hard to believe…"

Her hands came up before her, as if she could grasp the concept for him from the air.

"I wish there were a way to prove myself to you; to convince you that I'm not delusional or psychotic, but I don't even know where to begin..."

His eyes narrowed slightly, "If that's true, Kara, then why are you here telling me this?"

She took a step forward, straightening her shoulders as best she could, hiding behind Starbuck and her swagger.

"Because, I'm not asking you to believe in my sanity or what's left of it. I'm asking you to honor what we have. You've told me before that I'm like a daughter to you…" she steeled herself, moving in for the kill, leaning over the edge of his desk. He watched her, solemn and silent.

"If that is still true, I need you to do this one thing-I need you to _believe _in me. Trust me on this one, Boss," eyes glistening, she smiled through the enormity of it; shook her head a little.

_Please, let this time be different. Easier._

"I can get us there."

If anything, he looked less convinced than before.

"Why now, Starbuck? You say you know the way to Earth-why now? Why not say something before this?" his gravelly voice scraped along her raw nerves, igniting desperation. What if she couldn't convince him that the answer was _right here_?

"I didn't know before now," she took a deep breath but it didn't help. The words sounded silly even to herself. "But I've known the way all along. It had to just…click into place."

"When?" he bit the word out.

"Before six weeks ago, if that's what you're getting at, sir. This isn't the result of some recent breakdown." She straightened now, paced away from the desk, hands on hips. "I have the jump coordinates to our new home locked away in my memory. You could say I've had them there since I was a child."

"I_ could_ say it, but I wouldn't," his words lashed at her. He rose to stand then, hands on the desk before him, "What are these coordinates then, Starbuck. Let's have them. I'll give them to Lt. Geata right away. We can get his assessment on the likelihood of finding a habitable planet there."

Kara felt her face grow hot, her jaw clenched," It doesn't work like that, _sir_."

"Then how does it work, Kara?"

It felt like she had already lost the battle, and she hadn't even had the chance to draw her weapon.

"When I need to know…I-I'll just know," she blinked rapidly as sudden tears of desperation threatened to spill over.

"You'll just know."

"Yes." Spoken through gritted teeth.

His expression crumpled, "You need help, Kara."

It stung like hell, though she'd expected no less.

"Admiral. _Please_. You've trusted in the prophecies before, in Laura Roslin's claims of-"

"This. Is not. The same. Thing." Almost a growl.

"How can you know that?" her jaw felt too tight, as if it would snap off the hinge.

"I know _this_…" he came around his desk to stand in front of her. His eyes were hard now, and she knew all hope of her winning his cooperation was now truly lost.

"…I do not want to lose you, Kara," he inhaled deeply, audibly, "but wherever these…these sudden _instincts_ of yours lead-if they do in fact lead anywhere at all- I will not blindly follow you to the hard deck to save you like my son."

She barely blinked, but the tears spilled over.

"Not when I have the entire fleet to think of. I can't afford that kind of personal weakness."

"Is it that you can't afford it, Admiral? " she bit out, voice trembling," Or is it that you've already spent it on someone else?"

"Pull yourself together, Starbuck, " he admonished though there was fresh hurt in his eyes. For her or for himself? "Get help. Or I will see to it that you do."

She felt her face crumple, tried to fight it. _How much more? _It looped endlessly through her mind, threaded itself through every thought.

She dropped her eyes and backed away. Where was the hatch? Where was the _frakking_ hatch?

Her eyes fell on it and she walked towards it briskly, throwing it open with impressive force and pulling it shut in the same way. She didn't see the broken expression on his face as he watched her go.

"How do we measure loss?"

The prosecution lawyer's voice carried clearly all the way to the back of the room where Kara sat with the rest of the trial's audience. Looking around, she could see that most were familiar faces. There were a few pilots, the usual press, ship's officers, the president and her people. There was also a scattering of civilians throughout the crowd. If the looks most of the people were throwing Baltar's way were any indication, they all had at least one thing in common: a supreme aversion to Gaius Baltar.

Kara leaned an elbow on her armrest, absently brushing her fingers against each other. She stared down at the proceedings below, expressionless.

"We measure it in our own faces…because it has marked each of us."

The Admiral sat facing the crowd with the rest of the tribunal- it flicked on the raw just to look at him after last night. She was half-surprised he hadn't sent guards after her as she left his quarters. Wasn't this the part where he threw her in the brig?

Every now and again, she could feel his eyes on her; she stubbornly refused to allow a crack in her facade. They could all think her crazy, him included. Frak it. She'd be damned if she was going to lay begging on the floor again, screaming they were going the wrong way; proving their point for them.

It was growing increasingly clear to her that in the end she might have to just risk a bullet to the head and storm the CIC with nothing but her sidearm if she wanted to take this fleet to the new Earth. As if it were even a question. How could she condemn the human race to wander endlessly when she knew the way? How selfish would that be?

Truth was, Kara was feeling a little selfish. What if she just decided it had all been a crazy nightmare? That she _didn't_ know the way? She was just like everyone else. It was no problem of hers where they all eventually landed. She would just prove herself flight ready, get reinstated, and go out time after time and do her job. Kill some toasters. Come into the hangar bay, make way to the head to wash off the battle. Spend some time in the rec room. Grab some rack time. Get up and do it all over again.

At the start of all this, the routine might have seemed like a sentence, a curse. Now it almost sounded like a welcome relief.

She bowed her head and smiled a little to herself, a self-depreciating tilt to her lips. Who was she kidding? When had she ever been able to just give in and give up.

She looked up at the scene laid out before her again, still lost in thought. She'd lost track of the prosecution's speech ages ago.

So if she were going to do this-storm the CIC, or whatever the frak she came up with…The question was _when_. When did she just end it, one way or the other? And what was she waiting for?

A movement down below in the corner of the room caught her eye and she turned in time to see Lee entering from the east side. He scanned the crowd as if he were looking for someone. Judging by his expression, he didn't see whoever it was. Must be Dee. Kara had noticed her absence. Probably holding down the fort in CIC.

She watched him find a seat to her left, never sparing a glance in her direction. Kara barely flinched- a flicker of emotion-before turning her attention back to the blonde prosecutor just as she wrapped up her speech.

"For that, he must pay the ultimate price."

Several heads around Kara nodded in agreement. Well, this was all pretty unnecessary if popular public opinion accounted for anything. But since Gaius Baltar had been quite alive when she'd returned from the dead last time, she had to assume this eventually fell in Gaius' favor.

She didn't really see how.

Romo Lampkin stood and began busily spinning some rhetoric.

Okay, so she supposed it was possible after all.

"This man is no better than a cylon, and what do we do with them?"

A man in the last row, directly behind her, shifted forward, "_Throw them out the airlock_!"

Kara couldn't stop the smirk that pulled at the very corner of her lips. She had to give the man marks for style if not substance.

She got that feeling someone was watching her again, but this time it was not in the direction of the Admiral. She threw a glance to her left and caught Lee looking in her direction with an expression that was difficult to read. The smile, such as it was, slid from her face and she turned to face forward.

That's why she was startled to feel someone slipping into the empty seat next to her a moment later.

"There you are, Captain," he spoke just above a whisper, respecting the proceedings.

She stretched out her jaw a bit, suddenly uncomfortable though she wasn't sure why.

"Here I am, Major," she matched him in tone and inflection. She tilted her head away from him and rubbed the smooth skin of her temple, elbow still firmly planted on the armrest.

He was watching her and not the trial. She ignored it for a few moments, then gave up and turned to him, her face clear save for a hint of defensiveness.

"What is it, Lee?"

He shook his head a little, eyes holding hers, "You tell me, Kara." His voice was soft, even for a whisper. He knew.

She scowled, "Your dad told you, didn't he?

She watched him hesitate.

"Yes."

Her mouth tightened and she turned away from him, staring at the trial with unseeing eyes, "Look at it this way, Lee. Now you don't have to wonder if I'm going crazy. I've answered the question for you."

The woman on Kara's other side threw her a dirty look. Kara threw a far dirtier one back. _What?_ She'd whispered as quietly as she frakking could.

Lee leaned forward, arms on knees, head bowed.

"Kara, I just want to help."

"If I really believed that-"

"Believe it." His quiet tone allowed for no argument.

"Lee…" Kara wanted to tell him. Everything. She really did. But the wounds from last night were still fresh. The hurt still raw. If Lee turned his back on her, too…

It might break her. She couldn't be sure she was strong enough to do this again without anyone believing in her. She wanted to believe she would be, but what if she wasn't?

She fell silent, unsure.

With a little shake of his head, he finally looked up to focus on Lampkin's opening arguments. As he did, she happened to glance down at his hands, clasped casually between his knees. His ring finger was bare.

Kara sat in the same spot the next morning, watching the lawyers and the members of the tribunal shuffle papers, clear throats, and wait for the trial to resume. Fascinating stuff.

She slumped back in her seat, head to the side, drumming her fingers on her armrest. She wasn't sure what was worse, staying in her rack room and worrying, or watching this circus to get her mind off of it all. How many days until they reached the Nebula? Four, five?

"Come here often?" Lee slid into the row and sat down beside her. She hadn't seen him since late yesterday, when he'd excused himself to help security escort Baltar from the room. "_Double duty_," he'd explained. "_Couldn't be helped_."

She was surprised at the light tone of his voice but gratefully rolled with it.

"Not often enough to warrant the VIP section," she joked, nodding at where Roslin and her aids sat along the bottom rows.

He settled in with the rustle of his uniform and a sigh, "Just as well. I couldn't laugh at smart-ass remarks like that one if we were front and center."

She smiled a bit without turning to him, tapping her temple with the side of her finger, "Good point."

They sat in silence for a moment, until he broke it, "I could use a good laugh right about now-have anything for me?"

So he was going to avoid talking about the heavy stuff. Kara felt the knot in the pit of her stomach unwinding just a little. She shifted in her seat to face him. He looked exhausted.

"Yeah. You look like hell, Major."

He arched a brow, "Not your best effort, Kara. Maybe it was in the delivery?"

She frowned, "I mean it, Lee. You look like you haven't slept in days. How much does the Old Man think you can take on?"

"Honestly?" he leaned his head back and scrubbed the palms of his hands over his face, "He's probably got something else already lined up."

She placed an elbow on the back of her chair and leaned her head against her hand, looking around the room and then glancing at him every so often. He lowered his hands and folded them, but his eyes remained closed.

"If you want to sleep through this, I'll cover for you. But that might not be the best way to go about it."

The corner of his mouth turned up, "Oh yeah? Then what would you suggest?"

"The thinking pose…head down, hand on forehead. I use it all the time during briefings. The CAG is kind of a windbag."

He chuckled, "And we have the first smart-ass remark of the day."

She was enjoying this a little too much. How long had it been since they had allowed themselves to be this relaxed with each other? Before Sam. Before Dee. After Zak. Whenever they could.

She dreaded the moment it would inevitably end.

"Are you sure that's the first? What about when I said you looked like hell?"

He huffed. "No, _that_ was the truth." He opened his eyes and turned to her. He seemed surprised to find her watching him, his eyes narrowed for a second. Her expression silently dared him to make something of it. He didn't.

But when he leaned his body forward, elbows on his knees, she knew the mood had shifted.

The knot began to wind tight again.

"I feel like I haven't been there for you lately, Kara. The past few days-Actually, make that weeks- have been…" there was a pause while he laughed softly, without humor, "…difficult." He stared at the ground.

She got the feeling he wasn't just talking about being over-worked.

Kara leaned forward on her elbows, too, glancing over pointedly at his empty ring finger.

She lowered her voice, "Does it have something to do with that?"

He looked up and followed her gaze. The rueful ghost of a smile he gave her before looking down again was all the answer she needed.

She ran a thumb down the back of the chair in front of her, "I thought…you said things were the best they've ever been-"

"I lied."

Her head bowed, "I'm sorry, Lee."

He didn't look at her. "Don't be. Not your fault-I frakked it up all on my own."

She glanced over at him. They both knew that was a lie.

"Do you want-" she faltered, the muscle above her left brow twitched, "Do you want to talk about it?"

He turned to stare at her, gauging her sincerity.

Kara held his gaze for as long as she could before looking away.

"You've been different since you climbed out of that cockpit," his voice was quiet, careful.

She swallowed, "Different as in…crazed?" She braced herself.

He took a long time before answering; shook his head, "Different as in different."

A flicker of hope sparked inside of her.

She saw him shrug his shoulders out of the corner of her eye, "I don't know, Kara. It's almost like…like you have a secret that no one else knows. Like you have an advantage over the rest of us."

Her gaze flew to his, "You mean about what your father told you. About what I said to him."

She was surprised when he shook his head again, "I'm not talking about that."

She felt her eyes narrow; couldn't believe him. It was too easy. "Why are you being so understanding? Why not just come out and say it?"

"Say what, Kara? That I think you're crazy?" his smile was soft, fleeting, "I've always known that."

She watched him, feeling vulnerable now.

He frowned and contemplated his hands; raised one to rub his chin, elbow resting on his knee, "It's never changed how I feel about you." The sudden, resigned tenderness in his voice pierced through her clouded emotions.

She blinked rapidly, "Lee, there's something I need to tell you…"

The people in the seats around them grew suddenly silent, the room was being called to order.

Lee leaned back in his chair, faced her and crossed his arms. "I'm here. Whenever you're ready."

Kara looked at him over her shoulder, "Tonight. When you get off duty. The observation deck."

He looked surprised. Whether at her decisiveness, or the location was unclear.

Nevertheless, he answered her, "I'll be there."


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Kara stepped over the threshold, shutting the hatch behind her. It was dark here, lit only by the stars. She spotted one lone couple, energetically making out in the far right corner of the room, and one older man sitting in the middle of the other empty seats. She walked past the rows, glanced over to see he was taking notes in a journal by the light of a tiny handheld device.

Three people she'd never seen and probably never would again. It was the best she could do for privacy on a ship like this. It would have to do. Truth be told she'd expected a few more, but time had eventually worn down the observation deck's popularity as people concentrated less and less on recreation and more and more on bare-bones survival.

She pulled up in front of the forward view window and spent a few moments staring out into vast space before turning to the left. There was a narrow grooved wall winging out from either side of the glass. She walked past it to where the standard wall ran the length of the room, lowered herself to sit on the floor with her back against it. She could still watch the room and the hatch from here.

Drawing up her knees, she slung her arms listlessly over them and rehearsed what she would say one last time. This might be the last chance she had to plead her case to a potential ally. That truth alone made her stomach clench with anxiety. But couple that with the fact that this was Lee…she blew out a long breath.

It was a long time before she heard the clank of the hatch opening. So long that anxiety had given way to exhaustion.

She struggled to remember where she was, slowly blinking the sleep from her eyes. There was a cramp in her neck. She laid a hand on her nape and stretched out the knotted muscles there, fighting to clear the fog from her brain. At a glance, she could see that she had slept through the groping couple's departure, though the old man was still in his spot. He was as dead to the world as Kara had just been, head lolling against his shoulder as he snored quietly.

Lee made his way forward looking from side to side until he was standing before the panoramic view as she had done. He threw a glance out the window and the stars' light lined the profile of him in uniform with a silver film that put Kara in mind of a Colonial Forces recruitment poster she'd liked as a little girl.

"Lee." A sharp whisper.

His head turned and his gaze found hers. He made his way over to her silently, dropping to the floor next to her and stretching out his legs in front of him. He crossed his arms and leaned his head back against the wall, looking over at her almost fondly.

"You look like you just woke up."

"I did," she muttered.

"Sorry it took so long," he sighed roughly, staring ahead now, "Another false alarm: potential bomb threat in Baltar's cell. It was unfounded. Took longer to convince him to get back into it then it did to sweep the cell."

She smirked, "Wish I'd been there." She turned to watch his profile with a playful frown, nodding a little, "To help _convince_ him."

His lips pulled into a smile, "You _can_ be very convincing."

His words slapped her awake, reminded her why they were here.

"I hope so."

A long pause, then she felt his eyes on her face, "So. I'm here. Talk to me, Kara."

She clasped her hands between her knees and took a deep breath, "I've had this conversation with you so many times in my head…"

"Then pretend this is just another one of those times."

Kara nodded and began speaking slowly, methodically, "You mentioned earlier that I'm different lately. Different after climbing out of the cockpit all those weeks ago…The reason I'm different... is because I've lived that moment before."

She forced herself to turn and gauge his reaction. His eyes burned incredibly blue in the soft light but she couldn't read their expression.

Deciding no reaction was better than a negative one, she looked away and continued as matter-of-factly as possible.

"For me, it was several months ago…that I went into the cloud cover following a heavy raider. I got too close to the hard deck and you begged me to pull up, to come back. But I didn't. I passed the point of no return, my viper was incinerated in the explosion…I didn't pull up last time. I died, Lee."

This time she couldn't make herself watch his reaction. She just let it sink into the silence, then went on.

"You-You put a picture of me on the Memorial Wall, next to Kat, just like you promised. Do you remember that conversation?"

"Of course." His voice came in a rough whisper.

Her hands were trembling, she clasped them tighter.

"The picture was of me sitting at a table in the Ready Room, my hair was short. I had on my gray zip-up. I don't even know when it was taken…I didn't even know you had it."

She heard him exhale, quick and sharp, "No one does."

Bolstered by the small victory, she kept talking, "Shortly after my…death, the fleet jumped to the Ionian Nebula just as we are now. The cylons met you there. There's a battle and lives are lost, but-and trust me, I know how frakked up this sounds-they eventually turn away…I think because they sense the final four cylons in our fleet. The four have switched on by then, heard the music."

Now she did look at him, drawn against her will. He was watching her closely, like she was a puzzle he was trying very hard to solve. That had to be better than if he'd dismissed her ramblings outright…Didn't it?

He inclined his head, spoke slowly, "The music?"

She nodded, "I found out later that it was the same song my father taught me when I was a little girl."

She paused and licked her dry lips, let it sink in. When he finally spoke, his words took her a little by surprise.

"On the stand today Tigh was ranting about music playing in the room…..I thought he was drunk."

Kara smirked in spite of herself, "He was. But he was also dead serious."

Lee breathed a cynical laugh, his expression pained, "Kara, you have to be joking…"

"Or crazy."

Kara was profoundly grateful that he chose not respond to that.

"The other four are Sam, Chief, Tory and Ellen-who downloaded with Cavil after dying on New Caprica."

Dead silence. She didn't have to look to know he wore a shocked expression.

"Do you want me to stop now?" She concentrated on plucking at a fiber in the carpet.

"No," he managed after several moments. It wasn't very encouraging but it was enough. She forced herself to speak slowly and not rush right through it.

"So. Back to the Nebula. You had taken off your wings. You were estranged from the Old Man because you had chosen to help Baltar's lawyer with his defense."

She took a moment but he offered no argument, nor did he look distressed. If anything he looked…thoughtful. Perhaps he'd been secretly considering it?

Her eyes narrowed, "You don't seem surprised by that."

He spoke tiredly, as if he'd argued this point with someone else only recently, "I believe everyone deserves a fair trial, Kara. Even Gauis Baltar."

Kara shook her head with the ghost of a smile. He was such a constant to her unpredictability. Where would she be without him?

She continued, "Regardless of your military status, when the cylons were attacking, you suited up and launched an alert viper. It was still your fight. Once you were in the sky, you noticed a singularity on your dradis. You pursued."

Kara paused, she tilted her head down and away, feeling vulnerable.

"It was me, Lee. I came back- to lead the fleet to Earth. It had only been about 6 hours of lost time for me. You told me I had been dead for 2 months. Of course, everyone thought I was a frakking cylon. No one trusted me. I was scared and confused…They threw me in the brig and wrote me off…"

She faced him fully, hoping the neediness didn't show, "You came to see me there. You told me you believed me."

He looked up at her, eyes roaming her features. Could he tell what that had meant to her?

She averted her face, the starlight outlining the side of her jaw, "In time, I got my act together. We all made a lot of hard choices along the way. I don't know if all of them were the right ones, Lee. I just know that when we needed it most, the pieces fell into place; the puzzle made sense. I entered the jump coordinates into the ship's FTL and jumped the ship to a new Earth..."

This part was harder than she'd anticipated. She hesitated. He waited silently.

"When we got to the planet's surface-I knew, Lee. I wasn't meant to stay, to live out my end on Earth like everyone else…"

Kara felt as if she were cracking from the center outwards. Her vision blurred. She stubbornly kept on, gritting, "I didn't _want_ to leave, Lee. I didn't want to leave _you_."

She turned back to him. His brows had drawn together, his eyes clung to her face. There was confusion there, concern. But maybe a little hope as well.

"I asked you what your plans were. You started to tell me and I closed my eyes…I listened to the sound of your voice…" her expression tightened out of sheer determination to make him understand what that had been like.

His face crumpled, whether from his own personal emotion or just sympathy for her, she couldn't tell. She turned back around and put her hands behind her head, elbows on knees, closing herself in within her arms, "When I opened them, I was in that cockpit again and you were ordering me to pull up. I listened this time."

She swallowed the tears, frustrated with herself. She was trembling now with the effort not to cry. _Too much confusion._

"And now here I am. And frak if I know why."

Neither of them said another word for a very long time.

The old man with the journal had woken and left, her back and arms had cramped, before she spoke again.

"You think I'm crazy too, don't you? You don't believe me," she unfolded and stood.

Kara felt his warm hand reach out to grasp her by the wrist, anchoring her. He rose up to stand beside her. She turned to him, afraid to see.

He stared at her for a very long time; so long the blue of his eyes seemed to burn straight to the back of her brain. She clenched her jaw.

He slowly reached out and tenderly tucked a flyaway strand of blond behind her ear, his fingertips feathered her hot cheek. He was frowning; she trembled.

"You've lived alone with this for weeks, haven't you?"

She just gazed back at him brokenly. It wasn't the response she'd expected. His compassion was almost harder to bear than the Admiral's scorn.

He let out a long, slow breath, placing his hands in the curve of her shoulders, still frowning.

His thumb brushed over the hollow of her throat, "I believe _in you, _Kara Thrace. And that's enough for me."

A startled, ragged breath; a hint of a frantic smile, escaped her. So much of the pent up anxiety, fear and confusion escaped along with it.

Kara dropped her head against his shoulder, all the fight in her momentarily spent.

She felt his left hand slip over her shoulder and down her back, keeping her there, head against hers. It was safe here. She wanted to stay.

But somehow, she knew there was more to all this then what she wanted.

She finally lifted her head and met his eyes, "I can get us back to that planet, Lee. I just…I need someone to _believe me_."

He tilted his chin down, pinning her with his intent gaze, his hands fell to wrap around her upper arms, "You found him."

Kara tilted her head, almost playful, downplaying the deep emotion that threatened to overwhelm. She gave him a brilliant smile. Love, gratitude, the edge of tears.

His hand came up to cradle her face and his empty ring finger caught her eye once more. A sudden thought occurred to her; a need to know. She glanced down, smile fading; shifted.

When she looked back at him, her tone came matter of fact, "Dee won't like it." More question than statement.

His hand dropped. He looked away, over her head, jaw suddenly tight, "I'll add it to the list."

Kara watched his face," What's been going on, Lee?"

His other hand dropped as well and he took a little step back, angled away from her, but not far. She could still reach out and touch his left shoulder.

"Our marriage is over, Kara. She walked out on me several days ago. She wants a divorce…"

Kara frowned, that didn't sound like Dee.

"Why?"

Lee looked back at her over his shoulder, smiled a sad smile, "Where do I begin?"

Kara just shook her head and shrugged; waiting. Wherever he wanted to.

"We've been…disagreeing, a lot. Lately. About nothing. About everything: Baltar's trial. My dad…" he paused, "…you.

"What about me?" she finally asked, quietly. It took him a while to answer.

"That day you spoke of, the last time you flew your viper…There was this moment before you pulled up, when I _knew_ I had lost you." He looked at her, the intensity of his gaze made her insides tighten, "I couldn't forget it…Couldn't shake it…"

He turned away for a moment, and his gaze took on a faraway look, as if he were searching his memory for the words; remembering.

"That's when I finally realized…If I needed all that strength…at just the thought of losing you…then what was the point?"

He pinned her with that gaze yet again and exhaled in the way one does before diving into ice cold water, "I need to be with you, Kara."

She stared at him silently, letting his words burn down to her core.

"I'm going to make you frakkin' miserable, Lee." It was both warning and promise.

"Yeah?" his eyes roamed over every inch of her face, "For how long?"

"For as long as you'll have me, I guess." In her face, there was a curious mixture of vulnerability and trust.

He finally stepped back to her, so close.

"That, Kara Thrace," he whispered fiercely, "is going to be a very long time."

And then his hands were threading through her hair and his hot breath warmed her lips as he hovered in that moment between hesitation and fulfillment.

She leaned in that last fraction of an inch for him, sealing the deal. She laid her fingers along the edge of his jaw and pulled him closer still, so close there lips ground together painfully and there was no choice but to open their mouths to accommodate.

His hand slid down her throat, over her shoulder, caressing her arm until she grasped his hand with her own and used it as leverage to walk him back against the wall.

His arm hit the wall just before he did and she released him to place her hands on either side of his head. She pressed herself against him, fighting to get as close as she could without losing herself inside of him. Or maybe that was the whole point.

He placed his fingertips on her chin, gently pulling down until her mouth opened wider and the kiss deepened further still. She feared she was getting a little carried away, but he didn't seem to mind. His hands were burning on her lower back, holding her against him. As if he had to. It was nice of him to pretend she wasn't attacking him, though. Always the gentleman.

The thought made her smile against his lips, and he left her mouth to place fierce little kisses along her chin and down her jaw. If the way her fingers dug deeply into the top of his shoulders as he slid his open mouth over her throat was hurting him, he didn't show it.

The all too familiar clank that proceeded the hatch door opening stopped them both. Kara dropped her head onto his shoulder heavily for a moment before turning to throw a look over her own. She was just in time to see a shadow standing against the backlit hatchway.

She could feel Lee's eyes still on her face as she licked her lips and pushed off the wall. She stepped away and to the side, movements loose and indolent. The room was colder than she remembered.

"Um, Major Adama?" the young man's voice was both rattled and apologetic.

"You've got to be frakking kidding me," she said through her teeth, placing her hands on her hips as the messenger made his way across the darkened room.

Lee was still dragging in air rather rapidly as he straightened and stepped forward, "Yes, uh, what is it, Petty Officer?"

"Sir, Admiral Adama has requested your presence in his quarters immediately."

Kara could feel the man stealing furtive, curious glances at her on every other word. She looked down at her boots and cleared her throat, ignoring him altogether.

Lee laughed without humor, muttered, "Of course he has." Then louder, "Did he give any particular reason why?"

The question seemed to take the officer by surprise, though he rallied admirably, "I believe he would like for you to, um, give your opinion on the recent discovery of the Tillium ship's radiation signature. Sir."

Lee nodded curtly, "I'll be right there."

The young man threw one last look in her direction. She met this one. He took a quick step back and turned back to Lee.

"Uh…Yes, sir." He saluted and left them in peace but left the hatch open.

Kara watched him go. She decided she would happily strangle him if she ever ran across him again.

Lee was watching her closely, she swiveled towards him. He wore a little apologetic half-smile; almost hesitant.

Kara shrugged and sighed roughly, running a hand through her ruffled hair.

He turned back to the open hatchway, his expression grew irritated, "Looks like I'm being summoned." The frustration in his voice somehow soothed her own.

She pulled a frown, trying to ease the tension between them. Her tone took on an irreverent edge, "Well, look at it this way, Lee. For tonight, at least, your virtue remains intact."

He gave her that little exasperated expression that was somehow both amused and disbelieving, and shook his head.

"What?" She folded her arms, rubbing them and smirking a bit.

He strolled to where she stood and invaded her space.

"Just…you," he lifted a hand to finger the ends of her hair for a moment.

Feeling suddenly jumpy, a little laugh caught in her throat, "What about me?"

He contemplated her, "Everything about you, Kara."

He kissed her hot and quick, turned and left through the hatch.

Kara stood there a while after he had gone, worrying her lip, lost in thought.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

The sound of the hatch opening as quietly as a hatch possibly can was her first wake up call. She heard a couple of her fellow bunkmates rustle and stir then promptly fall back to sleep. They were used to each other's odd hours.

There was the feel of paper under her cheek, rustling as she stirred.

"Starbuck?"

Kara groaned, slowly becoming aware of the awkward way she was slumped over the table.

"_Kara_," the voice lower now, but more insistent.

She shifted, mumbled, "Lee?"

"Kara, are you okay?"

Her eyes fluttered open slowly, she turned her head on the table's surface to see him silently helping himself to the seat cattycorner to her own. A corner of her full mouth pulled into a frown. He was in his uniform, eyes tired but alert. That indefinable something that was so clean and sharp about him was in full force, begging to be messed with and despoiled and rumpled. Kara, on the other hand, felt stiff and sore and clouded for the second time in as many meetings with him. It didn't seem right.

"What time is it?" mumbled into her papers and scribbles as her heavy eyelids slid shut of their own accord. She felt herself beginning to drift off again.

"O-Four-Hundred."

Kara groaned.

She could feel him leaning over the table towards her, whispering, "What are you doing out here, Kara?"

She lifted her head and slid stiffly off the crew quarter's table, pulling in her outstretched arm, which had now gone numb.

"I guess I fell asleep…I was just trying to remember…." She gingerly moved her arm in and out from the elbow, making a fist, waiting for the feeling to return.

"Remember what?" his eyes fell momentarily to the countless notes, signs, and numbers on the sheets lying before her. He slid one towards himself.

"The way to Earth, " she mumbled, placing the heels of her hands over her eyes, elbows on table.

He was silent for a moment, studying the fruits of her labor…or lack thereof.

"I thought you already knew the way?"

"I do…I mean, _I will_," she replied, her quiet voice muffled still further from behind her hands, "If it works like before, then the pieces will fit together when the time comes for us to jump…"

She felt him stir, shifting closer to her, "Then why are you staying up all night trying to remember now, Kara?"

Kara scowled and dropped her hands, it was too early in the morning to make sense of this. Even to herself.

She was startled to see his face was very near her own, he had moved his chair to the very edge of the table. She felt a pang in the pit of her stomach, a need to be even closer, though she didn't act on it. He was watching her with concern and it made her doubt and fear seem just a skeptical word from him away.

"I thought if I could just give the Admiral the coordinates, he might be more inclined to believe me."

Lee nodded as if that were perfectly reasonable, lifting a hand to rub his chin just below his lower lip. Gratitude and attraction were powerful companions. The pang grew into something deeper, sharper. She glanced over at Hotdog's bunk, curtain pulled shut. He was probably still sleeping like the dead and hadn't stirred a hair since Lee had entered.

"Have any luck?"

"With what?" she frowned in concentration, though not really on his words.

He lifted a sheet of paper, covered in little black markings.

"Oh," she cleared her throat quietly, "That." She took the paper from him, placing it on top of the stack with the rest.

"Not really…it's," she threaded her fingers through her hair, holding it back from her face,"…it's like you've already solved a complicated equation, right? Only they've taken away the formula to solve it, and now they want you to just recite the correct answer back from memory instead."

He seemed to ponder that for a moment, hand over his mouth now. He finally placed both hands on the table, palms down and sighed.

"So, want to hear some _good _news?"

"_Yes_," she said on a sigh of relief, glad to be done with the subject for now. Her hand slid from her hair onto the table's surface.

Lee lowered his gaze to that hand. She stilled as he reached over, rubbing at some ink that had smeared along the outside edge of her palm and little finger. The action itself was casual, familiar, if her response was not. She narrowed her eyes, watching him for some sign of what he was thinking. He didn't seem to notice.

His fingers smoothed warmly across her skin as he spoke, and for a moment, all the uncertainties and troubles that swirled through her brain came to a standstill and focused on his touch. Like tuning into a familiar voice in a crowded room.

"I have a couple of free hours in my schedule starting twenty minutes ago…and I finally convinced my dad to let me take you on a test flight; to get you reinstated. So we can go out right now, today."

She looked up and cocked her head, skepticism written all over her.

"How'd you manage that?"

He finished removing the ink and his hand fell back to the table. She followed the movement with her eyes.

"He's been saying for weeks now that as CAG, mine is the final word in the decision to keep you grounded. I thought it was only fair that if he was going to make me the final authority on keeping you out of the sky, that I should still be the final authority on whether you go back up into it."

"I bet he loved that."

Lee remained silent, nodding. Kara gazed over at him, dropping her head to the side. He was looking down at the table, reclining back in his chair now; his gaze unseeing. It couldn't have been easy to convince his father, but he'd done it. She felt a rush of gratitude.

"Thank you," Her low voice was warm, appreciative. She kept her eyes on him.

He nodded again, more absently this time. Why was he so frakking far away?

"What's wrong, Lee?"

"Do you mind if I ask you something? Something personal?" he tapped the top of the table with his finger, his quiet voice came a little hesitant.

Kara fingered the edges of the scattered sheets of paper quietly, pushing at them a little, "Shoot."

She heard him inhale, "What about Sam?"

Kara stilled for a moment, "Sam and I are over, Lee." She turned sideways in her chair and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, "Anything else?"

She turned to look over at him. His jaw clenched in that way that was so familiar. She wanted to run her finger down the taut line of it, smooth the muscle.

"You say that now, Kara…"

"I've already talked with him. He knows," Kara shifted the last little bit, so that her left knee aligned with his. She gave his leg a little push with her own.

He leaned towards her in response, and his left hand reached under to clasp gently over her knee where it rested against him. He held her leg still, but it was his touch, warm on the bare skin there below the hem of her shorts, that held her attention.

"And what is it that he _knows, _Kara?"

Her blood heated as he left his hand there, seemingly unaware. He was driving her frakking crazy. She pulled her leg away abruptly.

He mistook the gesture, his expression stiffening a little. He straightened and sighed.

But Kara had experienced enough misunderstandings and missed chances to last a lifetime. And they had just over an hour out of his schedule to wrap this up, suit up, get in the cockpit, and get her reinstated.

She clasped her hands together between her knees until her knuckles turned white.

"Lee," her voice was low, direct, true.

He looked back at her then, watching her with that curious mixture of reluctance and fascination that was pure Lee. They stared at each other.

"He knows how I feel about…" She dropped her head, closed her eyes and stopped; clearing her throat a little. This was harder for her than it should have been. Why had she never noticed how bright the overhead light was in here?

When she spoke again her words were measured and her determined gaze on him was painfully honest, "It's you and me, Lee, okay? From here on in. Trust me on this. It's _you_," she could admit it now, "It always has been."

He gazed at her with a fathomless expression; eventually pressed his lips together and nodded. But Kara could still see shadows of doubt in his eyes, flickering far past the shield of blue.

She didn't fault him for it, they were in two different places. Perhaps he needed the time she'd already lived through.

"Promise me something?" he looked down and whispered after a moment.

"If I can," she continued to watch him.

"Promise me that you'll be careful today. Just…just be careful up there, Kara," he gave her a very small smile.

His sudden shift in focus took her by surprise. She felt a little guilty somehow. As if he had asked too little of her. She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and tried to smile lightly, reassuringly.

"Done," she shoved off and stood, he pushed back his chair with a near-silent motion and did the same.

"And Kara?" 

She glanced up and over. He was standing close.

"I think we should go to my father, _together_. Try to get through to him before we do anything crazy."

Kara felt her brow lower, a nervous tick; still a little afraid to hope. She tried to smirk, "We?"

He smiled in that charmingly reserved way he had, "Yes, _we_, Kara. We're in this together, aren't we? Wasn't that the whole point?"

Tenderness, appreciation, relief, flooded her. To not be alone. To be half of one whole.

She exhaled and stepped closer, breathing his air instead; wrapping her arms around his shoulders and tugging him forward. She rested her head against him and let the emotions play across her face where he couldn't see.

His hands fell on her shoulder, on her back, securing her to him. Kara always thought it curious, that he could somehow make her feel both breakable and invincible in the circle of his arms. Sometimes she never wanted to leave them.

She finally dropped her arms and pulled away a little to meet his deep gaze, "_You_, Lee Adama, are just lucky …" She laid her open hands on either side of his face, her expression a little fierce, the promise of passion in her eyes, "…that we only have one hour."

Kara could tell by his sudden stillness that she had taken him by surprise. It struck her then; how he could believe her, trust in her, about the most incredible things, and yet still doubt her on how she felt about him. It hurt most because Kara knew she had no one but herself to thank for that.

Kara shut her eyes and raised her head to press her lips softly against his. Just a touch, a connection. She needed him to believe her on this, too. He pulled away for a fraction of a moment, then returned the gesture warmly, his chin rasping pleasantly over her own as his mouth played gently over hers. Once, twice. Her teeth slid over his bottom lip as he pulled away completely.

She dropped her head to slide along his jaw in frustration. She kept her eyes closed and silently begged him to do the wrong thing and spend the next hour making her forget that she was supposed to be proving herself to people that hadn't even believed her the first time around.

He held her tighter, his ragged whisper burned against her ear, "I wouldn't call that _lucky_, Kara."

Her stomach tightened in response but she had her answer. They stayed too close for a moment more, then by some mutual agreement, broke the embrace and stepped away from each other. Kara spun away, biting her lip viciously, and walked to her locker, quietly retrieving what she needed. Maybe the best thing for her right now was to be in her bird, stars above and nothing below. Completely in control. Even while spinning out of it.

She threw what she hoped was a good-humored frown over her shoulder and whispered briskly, "Ready, Apollo?"

He took a silent moment, then smiled a little miserably and nodded. He followed her out the hatch, closing it carefully behind them.

"Ready, Starbuck?"

Kara strode up to where he stood waiting and stopped, placing her hands on her hips.

"Ready as I'll ever be," She said, face set.

Lee tilted his head in the direction of the Admiral's quarters, "Then let's go."

They walked in together, side by side, standing at ease. The Admiral was in his seating area waiting for them, eating some sort of pasta from a bowl. A familiar sight, so why did her stomach feel as it had been stretched out and tied and twisted?

"There's more," he raised his hands, indicating the half-empty bowl, "If you two are interested."

"I'm good, thanks." Lee looked calm enough. It helped, but only a little.

Kara lifted a hand off her hip, shaking her head, "No. Thanks."

"So, you said you wanted to see me?" Adama asked between bites.

He continued before she could answer, glancing from one to the other, "Well, are you two going to sit, or just stand there and watch me eat?"

Kara sat down far enough away from the Admiral so that she could turn sideways and look at him. Lee chose to sit on the arm of the sofa directly behind her, crossing his arms. She found having him there like that oddly comforting.

The Old Man looked from one to another, "I take it this isn't a social call." He set the bowl down on the low table before him. He threw Lee a look which Kara interpreted as suspicion. He turned back to her.

"I understand you got back in your bird last week, Starbuck. Without incident." He seemed sincere, but his expression was guarded.

She leaned forward and crossed her arms in her lap before her, "That's right, Sir."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"I'm-We… aren't here about my return to flight duty, Admiral," she looked him straight in the eye, he would respect no less.

"Yes. I gathered that." The older man leaned back now, folding his hands, watching them in that way he had.

"It's about Earth," she continued cautiously.

He sighed, "Of course it is."

Well, this was going as badly as she'd expected.

"Admiral-"

But he wasn't listening, his focus had shifted behind her.

"So, I'm assuming by your continued presence here, that she has somehow managed to convince you that she is the key to finding Earth?" Kara hated the faintly disdainful tone he lent to his words, even if it was directed more at Lee than herself.

"That's right." No hesitation, no fear. She drew from that.

"Just like that," the Admiral laughed to himself, but there was little humor. He looked down at his hands, "I have to say, I'm a little surprised."

"Admiral. Please," she tried again around her tight jaw, "If you'd just give me a chance to explain everything-"

"And if she told you Earth were right outside the nearest airlock, would you open it and step out, Son?"

It was like she wasn't even speaking. He'd made up his mind that she had lost hers and thus wasn't truly there.

"If the President of the Colonies told you that we should embark on an almost three year journey, searching for assumed "markers" on the way to Earth as told by the ancient oracle, Pythia, would you follow her?" Lee promptly returned with raised brows.

The older man huffed and looked down, smiling a little to himself without any joy, "You always did love to debate your way out of an argument."

"You always did love to force me to," Lee shot back; still in that calm, reasonable tone.

Adama turned his eyes to her face now, his expression softening slightly. "I can see why you brought him along."

He paused and rubbed tiredly at his eyes behind his spectacles, Kara waited for him to finish.

"Truth is, I almost envy my son. I would like to believe you, Kara. And to hell with the consequences."

He stood slowly, like an old man, "But I don't have that kind of freedom." He pinned Lee with a sort of glare, "I don't get to just choose what to believe for myself-I have the wellbeing of an entire fleet to think of."

Lee glanced over at her, one brow raised in question. He would follow her lead.

Kara began rubbing the palms of her hands together slowly "Sir, you've brought the fleet along on what amounts to a blind journey for years-"

Adama cut in crisply, "The sacred scrolls are thousands of years old. We've been to the Tomb of Athena. We've seen the Temple of the Five. We've followed the trail laid out by the Eye of Jupiter. I'm probably the last person to admit it- but the prophecies _have_ foretold actualevents." He unbuttoned the top collar of his uniform as if it had suddenly grown too tight, "On the other hand, Starbuck, you have suddenly _decided_ that a song you know from childhood is the answer to all of our problems."

Kara blew out a hot breath, chest heavy. His words stung more than she'd like to admit. She glanced sideways at Lee, frustrated. He nodded, encouraging.

She closed her eyes and pursed her lips for a moment; turned back to the older man, met his gaze with renewed determination, "But we didn't know any of those things were real, Admiral. That those events would happen, until we first followed somesign or symbol on_ faith. _Why does this have to be any different?_"_

The Admiral's eyes narrowed, "Because it contradicts all the things that have come before. Pythia never wrote of anything you're telling us now."

"Then maybe frakking Pythia is wrong," Kara had had enough, she stood up quickly and started forward, taking both men by surprise. She didn't stop until she was toe to toe with Adama.

"Regardless of what you say or think here, Admiral, I won't give up. I'll get us there or die trying. You know I will." She shook her head, gritting, "I don't know any other way to be."

The Admiral narrowed his eyes, lips pressed together, searching her face as if for answers.

"Give me a ship-any ship. The Demetrius will work if you can do without it. I'll take a small team to Earth. Take some pictures. Hell, go down to the surface and grab some soil samples. Then we'll jump back to a rendezvous point. " She crossed her arms and shifted on her feet, struggling to exude a confidence she did not feel, "We'll hand over the souvenirs, you'll get your proof…" She tilted her head, "Then we all jump back to Earth together. Happily Ever Frakkin' After, Sir."

A terrible moment of silence passed. She tried not to shift again but she was dying to.

"And if you're wrong? If you're all thrown thousands of SU's off course? If you jump your entire crew into the side of a meteor or on top of a fleet of cylon base ships?" He nodded his chin sharply in her direction, "What then, Starbuck?"

She sighed roughly, almost a growl, "_Fine_. I'll go alone. Just give me a ship." She could hear Lee standing up behind her.

The Admiral's expression tightened, "And what makes you think I find you any more expendable than the rest of my crew?" He shook his head sadly, "No, Kara. The answer is no."

Something inside of her strained beneath the weight, snapped.

His rejection of her the first time through had been devastating. She'd pulled her weapon on the President. She'd been thrown down to the floor of the brig by her throat, at the hands of this man who called her "daughter". She kept those memories with her. He did not.

Her features tightened as she stared at him; betrayed, rejected. Something passed between them. They each had made a choice and neither would back down.

Kara narrowed her eyes and set her jaw, stepped briskly around him, and headed for the hatch.

"Kara."

She spun the hatch wheel and pulled out her sidearm.

The Admiral began talking on the phone behind them both. It was hard to make out the words through the red mist of her anger.

"_Kara_." He was closer now. She pushed open the hatch with a tremendous amount of force, it flew back and out of her way. She stepped over the ledge and started down the corridor, gun held low.

The Admiral wasn't going to trust her, wasn't going to believe in her. Her options felt increasingly limited. She was suffocating under the pressure.

The Fleet was only a day-give or take some hours and change- away from the Ionian Nebula. Hundreds of people had died there…_would_ die there. Kara could either devise a plan to steal a ship right out from under the Old Man's nose…or she could march right up to the CIC, make that frakking traitor Felix Gaeta move out of her way, and jump them all the hell out of here.

Shipmates in the corridor threw her suspicious, distrustful glances. Some wore panicked expressions as they glanced down at her hand.

It occurred to her, somewhere in the back of her quick-tempered fog, that she probably shouldn't have drawn her weapon so far in advance. She adjusted her increasingly slippery grip on her sidearm, her lips pressing into a tight line as a young female officer threw Kara a particularly troubled look.

Kara blew out a breath and silently dared her to get in the way.

Lee gained on her, turned to face her, blocking her path to the CIC. He threw his arm out in front of her, hand on the wall, and cast a troubled glance over her shoulder.

Her chest rose and fell with every harshly drawn breath, "Move the frak out of my way, Lee." Both her voice and expression were clear, sharp as glass.

His heated expression was inches from her own, as he whispered for the sake of passersby, "Kara, don't. Think this through. We'll find another way."

"We don't have _time_ to find another frakking way, Lee," her voice gained in volume. Didn't care. She was so mad she was shaking with it.

"Hundreds of people will die when we reach that frakking nebula he's so dead set on paying a visit to. How many jumps left? Two, three at the outside? He'll never believe me. This is the fastest way." She ducked under his arm and made it a few more steps.

He just managed to reach out and catch her arm. He pulled her back briskly so that she stood with her shoulder to his chest as she stared straight ahead. He focused on her, his back to the hallway.

"Just because it's the fastest way, Kara, doesn't mean it's the right one," His expression had tightened. The irritation in his voice giving his words a clipped, urgent cadence.

She wouldn't look at him, seething with frustration.

"My father knows you a little too well. He was warning the CIC as we left. The guards will have a bead on you before you even make the hatch."

"I have to try," she gritted.

"No. You don't. Because he won't let you."

She turned on him, a force of nature.

"That's the problem. Don't you understand, Lee? I don't want to do this anymore. I've already done it. I hate it. _Hate_ this stupid frakking ship, _hate_ the endless fighting and war and waiting and wandering. I just want to jump us back to that frakking planet. I want some frakking _peace_. I'm not strong enough for this. "

She threw her head to the side in complete disgust, "_Frak it_." She returned the curious stare of a young man passing by with a scowl, "Frak all of you."

What was she doing? She didn't even know. She was too angry, too sick and tired and over it.

His hand suddenly wrapped around her arm," Snap out of it, Kara. You _are_ strong enough. Stronger than this. Stronger than him. Hell, you're the strongest person I know.

She just kept shaking her head, angry at him, at herself, at the Admiral. At the universe. She wanted to spit and fight and demand that they all listen. She wanted to have some measure of _control _over her own damned life.

"You can't stop me, Lee."

His quiet laugh was completely devoid of humor, "See what I mean? Sometimes I think you're_ too_ strong for your own frakking good."

A part of her knew he was absolutely right. About everything. But the other part was too busy resenting him for it.

He waited. Neither of them spoke for a taut moment. He watched her.

"You made a promise, Kara," his hand on her arm tightened a little, "Remember? You promised that I wouldn't lose you again. _Not this time_."

She felt a hot ache in her chest. She remembered. Frak, if Lee Adama didn't play fair.

"What do you think is going to happen if you go through with this and something goes wrong? Because something _will _go wrong, Kara."

She threw him a dangerous look out of the corner of her eyes; her skin felt flushed, hot. His expression was just as hard; unyielding.

She looked away, staring at nothing. Very slowly, she holstered her weapon.

He let out a sigh of relief? surprise? and then his entire body eased. His hand fell from her arm.

All the fight began to drain out of her, she exhaled slowly, felt her rapid heartbeat return to a more measured rhythm.

"I just don't know what I'm doing anymore," she sighed roughly, looking away from him. She slammed her palm against the bulkhead and left it there, "I'm just so..._tired_. Of all of this."

He ever so carefully moved closer, unsure of her reaction. She stayed still, silent. It was all the invitation she ever gave him. It was all he ever needed.

He rested his chin lightly at the top of her head, hand falling on her left shoulder, whispering.

"I know. I know you are."

She shut her eyes and swayed just a little. The fury inside of her flickered and died.

They were a team. He kept her sane, she kept him sharp.

She would have allowed the moment to linger; enjoying the peace, but Lee suddenly grew tense. His head lifted.

"_Frak him_."

The fierce whisper told her all she needed to know. Her fingers found the grip of her weapon once more.

"It's too late, they're on top of us."

Her trigger finger itched anyway. She stared at the floor sightlessly with suddenly blurred vision.

Lee turned to face them first, shielding her. Kara still hadn't turned around to look when the first one spoke.

"Captain Thrace? Please come with us."

"She's not going anywhere," Lee's voice was quietly commanding, as if by saying it, it would make it so, "She hasn't committed any crimes."

She straightened, already feeling the steel renew in her spine again. Her teeth gritted together, it was hot behind her eyes.

She turned to walk out from behind Lee and stand just in front of him and to the side.

"Kara-"

Movements restless, she sized up each of the heavily outfitted guards in turn. They had their guns trained on her and Lee both. Her hand rested stiffly on her hip, just above her holster.

The Admiral was there too, standing behind the guards. Watching with sorrowful, tear-filled eyes. Kara's gaze found him; she stared directly at his face, defiant.

"_This is a mistake_-" It had been a long time since Kara had heard Lee so disdainfully furious.

But Adama had eyes only for her, "Starbuck, this is for your safety as much as everyone else's. I won't have you putting yourself in harms way-"

She looked away from him mid-sentence, uninterested in anything more he had to say. She licked her dry lips and stared at the side of the corridor.

"So are we going or not?" she ground out, putting a stop to the Admiral's empty words. Lee walked passed, marching up to get in his father's face.

"_Think about what you're doing_…" a fierce whisper from a son, ignored by the father.

The guards cast questioning glances in the direction of the Admiral. He turned from Lee and nodded curtly. The guard nearest her reached and relieved her of her weapon then went for her arm.

She lifted her arm away and neatly sidestepped him, throwing the mother frakker a menacing glare, "Thanks. But I think I know the way."_ I know it all too well._

The marine looked back and visually checked with Adama once more. The Old Man nodded again. Lee looked away from everyone, visibly agitated, at the end of his rope with his father and the situation. The marine didn't reach for her another time, but stepped behind her.

Kara found herself immediately flanked and proceeded by all four of them, black uniforms rustling and slick helmets reflecting the light.

She clenched her fists as they neared the Admiral, speaking as clearly as her tight throat would allow.

"At the Nebula, we'll lose the Pyxis, the Zephyr will sustain heavy missile damage, and the Astral Queen will have her hull breached," Kara stared into his face and bit it out as she passed him, "Good luck."

His expression flickered. Pain? Doubt? She certainly hoped so.

Kara shot one last look at Lee over her shoulder.

He was standing still, breathing hard and watching her with a tormented, conflicted expression.

In Kara's mind, Lee had always been a study in contrasts. She could see how hard he was fighting right now to reconcile the soldier with the strategist. A part of him wanted to draw his sidearm and fight, consequences be damned. The other wanted to retreat, find the better way, avoid bloodshed.

Kara faced front, helpless. She had inner battles of her own.

Kara spent an endless night and a day, alone in the brig, before the ship spooled up for the final jump. Her hands wrapped tightly around the cool metal bars as the jump sucked them all in and spit them out at the Nebula.

She looked over at the guard, sitting stoically at a low table with a crossword laid out before him.

"I think this is where I came in," she said for no reason in particular. He just glanced at her and went back to his crossword, shaking his head.

"The last time, I mean, " she continued perversely. Now he didn't even bother looking up.

She smirked and shoved off from the bars, crossing her arms, biting her thumbnail. She'd just paced the length of her cell for the eleventh time when the lights went out.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Kara tossed another card onto the scattered deck of them, and then another, creating a rhythm. Slap. Pause. Slap. Pause.

If the guard was half as irritated as he looked, she was satisfied with the results of her activity.

The clank of the hatch, however, distracted them both. Kara glanced up, only mildly interested. Could be a break out. Could be dinner. Could be that gods damned psychologist begging for punishment. Since so far the Admiral had denied her any other visitors, recent history told her to expect one of the latter.

The guard stood at attention as the President stepped over the ledge and calmly strolled into the brig, hands clasped behind her. She looked around for a moment, almost as if she'd expected to find something else behind the hatch.

Kara threw another card, the movement a little defiant, eyes on the older woman's face.

Roslin turned to her then, full force, "Captain."

"Madam President," no inflection. She dropped the cards, let them fall where they may and stood, dusting invisible dirt off her palms onto her pants.

A silence stretched between them and Kara wondered if this was because Roslin was trying to think of how to say what she'd come here for, or if this were some sort of intimidation tactic.

The formidable brunette crossed her arms and tilted her head, "It seems you have an ally on the outside." Her voice was smooth, no emotion showing through.

"As opposed to all the allies I have on the inside?" she smiled, a little frenzied gleam in her eyes, and gestured widely to the empty brig.

The President made that little humming sound that meant she wasn't going to dignify your statement with a reply.

"Major Adama came to see me. He has told me quite a tale about you…he seems to think I might be more receptive to it than his father."

Kara laughed. There was humor in the sound of it, but there was bitterness at its center and pain along the edges, "That shouldn't prove too hard."

Roslin gave the first hint of a genuine smile since entering the room.

"Maybe." So noncommittal.

Kara narrowed her eyes, "So if you don't believe him, why are you here?"

"Oh, I believe _he_ believes it," Roslin took another step towards her, "And…I think it's possible that _you_ believe it…"

"Why would I lie?"

"You tell me, Captain."

It was Kara's turn to not dignify her opponent with a reply.

"We found nothing at the Ionian Nebula. Not a road sign, not a marker, a beacon. Not so much as a large rock. Even the cylons turned away after going to the trouble of following us there."

"That still doesn't explain why you're here," Kara's fingers flexed, digging into the wall behind her.

"Oh, but you see, it does, Captain. Because that leaves us exactly nowhere on the way to Earth. Which means-"

"That even a cracked-up, delusional story from a burned-out pilot claiming she's been to Earth and back might be worth listening to?" The bitter words all but spilled out of her, pooling at her feet like poison she had to wade through to bring them the truth.

The President just raised a brow and smiled a bit. Touché.

"The Major claims you are responsible for our avoiding any loss of life at the Nebula-on three ships you mentioned by name to the Admiral," Roslin's eyes narrowed, as if she were staring straight through her to the back of Kara's skull.

What? Was that a bad thing now?

"I apologize," Kara shot back smartly, "It won't happen again."

The President's already hard look took on a meaner edge.

"He also claims you know the names of the Cylons that Baltar calls 'The Final Five.'"

"Why would you believe me about that, and not about Earth?" Kara pushed herself off the wall and took a step forward, growing more frustrated by the moment, "Who cares about the frakkin' Final Five when we can just jump to Earth and be done with it?" 

"With those five Cylons in our fleet?" Roslin's voice was unnaturally calm now; dangerous.

Kara laughed again. She walked a fine line between fatigue and hysteria. This was all too much.

"Arriving at Earth with a few Cylons in tow might not be the end of the world you imagine, Madam President. Trust me on this one."

"Hmm," the older woman's eyes searched her face as if for proof of something, "Spoken like a true Cylon, herself."

Kara expelled a disbelieving breath, "Oh. Ok. Now I get it. That's what this whole thing is about. That's why you're here. Lee told you about me and you've decided it's somehow proof of my being a Cylon." She threw her hands up in the air, exhausted, exasperated.

"What _is it_ withyou people and thinking I'm a Cylon? Maybe I just know the way to Earth!"

"You suddenly _just know_ the way to Earth," skepticism dripped from the President's clipped words.

"You sound just like the Old Man," Kara bit out, pivoting away to pace.

Roslin stood calmly, following Kara's impatient movements with her eyes. "Tell me who the Final Five are, Captain. Prove yourself with that, and then we can talk about Earth."

Kara halted, mid-stride, "And how will you know if I'm telling the truth about The Five?"

Roslin held her arms behind her again, rocked forward on her right foot just a little. There was nothing restless or uncomfortable about her movements, on the contrary she seemed more relaxed, controlled than ever. It was like a dance with her. Each move a calculation for the upper hand.

"I should think their reactions when confronted altogether- by surprise of course-should be incriminating enough. Barring that, there are lie detectors within the Fleet. I'm sure we could put one of them to use."

Kara merely shook her head, brows lowering. The better part of her couldn't even be bothered to care about this line of questioning, "And if none of that works?"

"It'll have to."

Kara began pacing again, "Let's say I did that-gave you the Final Five in our fleet. Let's say then that you're satisfied that I'm telling the truth about them. Then what? I have to jump through some more hoops? Or can I just finally frakkin' enter the numbers, because I am telling you Madam President…I know the way. Every moment that passes by is a moment wasted. A moment that could be spent building a new life on that planet."

"Or this could just be some sort of Cylon trick and you could jump us into the middle of an ambush. Or…" The dark-haired woman's expression turned softer, almost sympathetic, "You could just be very ill, Captain Thrace."

"If those are the options, then I ask you again-why even come here, Madam President? I'm sure you have better things to do with your time," it burned behind her eyes now, she knew her face was flushing. Just when she thought they couldn't touch her, couldn't hurt her anymore, the bitter shell cracked and failed her.

Roslin took a thoughtful moment before speaking, "I suppose…it's because I once asked you to believe in my 'delusional' rantings as well. And you risked your life to do so. I feel like I should at least try…to return the favor."

"So let me. Let me take us home," Kara said, quiet but insistent. She clenched her fingers into useless fists.

"I'm sorry, Captain. I can't do that." The softness was still there but it was wrapped in steel. "I want the name of those five Cylons."

Kara stared at her, weighing her options.

Revealing the names of the Final Five would only make things worse at this point, wouldn't it? We're people on this ship ready to know that the people they worked side by side with were Cylons? Last time there had been the promise of Earth wrapped up in the deal. This time, she knew better. The Final Five only knew the way to a destroyed planet. And even then it had been through her frakkin' viper which was no longer in play. Adama would be destroyed again. Roslin would be betrayed. Distrust and mutiny throughout the entire fleet. Anarchy. And for what?

What was the point?

"And if I don't give them to you?" Kara finally managed.

Roslin tilted her head to the side, it reminded Kara of a snake coiling to strike, "Don't ask me that, Captain. You might not want to know the answer."

Roslin rotated as if to leave.

"I know about the cancer."

The President stood very still.

"I know that it's returned," Kara took a tentative step towards her, pleading. Angry at herself for doing it.

Laura Roslin turned back to her very slowly. Her eyes glistened, sharpened, "How can you know that? No one knows that."

"Because it's happened before, " Kara spoke quietly, eyes intent on the other woman's face.

"Cottle must have told you," Roslin's voice trembled ever so slightly.

"You know he wouldn't do that, Madam President," Kara watched her with sympathy now, brow furrowed, jaw tight.

The President offered no reply.

"The sooner I get us to Earth, the longer you can enjoy it," Kara kept her voice whisper soft; like an apology.

Roslin tilted her head slightly from side to side, visibly gathering herself together.

"Madam President-"

"I'll take what you've said into consideration," she smoothed out her expression, "I trust you'll do the same, Captain."

Kara sank slowly down to the floor again after the President disappeared through the hatch. She began to pick up the discarded cards one at a time, stacking them in her hand.

When she had all the cards, she tossed one down. Then the next.

Slap. Pause. Slap. Pause.

Kara laid her head back against the brig wall with a bored thunk, legs stretched out before her and crossed at the ankles. She flipped the page of her book after staring sightlessly at the print for several minutes. How was she supposed to concentrate on some light reading while the Fleet wandered aimlessly through space like a roving bulls eye for cylon attack.

She slapped the open book down on her lap and shoved a hand into her scalp, pulling the hair away from her eyes.

The hatch clanked and the wheel spun. There had been no visitors since the President had come by for that friendly threatening session. Not even that plague of a psychologist.

Dear gods she hoped it wasn't him again. Though giving him hell for a while was usually diverting. Kara slid her eyes over to her guard. He stood and focused on the opening hatch door. He seemed even more thrilled at the thought of a break in the monotony than she was.

An arm all geared up and clad in black was visible across the hatch's midsection as it swung open, then the lean form of compact muscle slid past the marine and entered the room with a curt dismissal to the outside guard.

The hatch groaned and sealed once more.

Kara felt a pleased smile pull at the corners of her mouth. She couldn't help it. Lee always managed to look even better when you hadn't been subjected to all those classic, boyish good looks for a while.

He had his hands in the pockets of his green fatigues as he strode up to the bars.

"Hey, Kara."

She rolled her head back against the wall, watching him with a sad little smile in her eyes.

"Hey, Lee."

He rested his shoulder against the bars and crossed his arms, his eyes traveling over her slowly as if he were recommitting her to memory. And yet, his expression somehow conveyed that she'd already been spending plenty of time there of late.

"So…how are they treating you?"

Kara rolled her eyes to the ceiling, lips pulling into a smirk, " Oh, you know... three squares a day... a visit from the doc...the occasional interrogation by the President of the Colonies…it's like my every frakking dream come true."

He tried to smile for her but he clearly wasn't buying it, "It took me this long just to convince my father to let me in to see you."

She looked down at her book again then glanced up at him through her lashes, chin tucked, "Are you going to stand out there the whole time?"

Lee shifted his jaw, "Admiral's orders," his acerbic tone painted a clear picture for Kara of what _that_ father/son confrontation had been like.

"He says I'm too close to the situation. That I've compromised my perspective and lack focus," Lee ended the recitation with a sarcastic pull of his lips and a nod.

Kara felt a pang of guilt, unhappy to be the cause of a rift between two of the most important men in her life. None of that showed in her expression however as she lifted her brows, "Wow. Is that all?"

"Actually, no. I also have let my personal feelings cloud my better judgment-both as CAG, _and _as a colonial officer."

Kara bit into her lower lip and stared down at her lap. He had her to blame for that. No matter how well meaning her intentions, she always managed to frak Lee Adama up in one way or another.

"Kara, don't."

She looked up to meet his knowing gaze. She bristled under the weight of it. She hated being an open book.

"Don't what?" she muttered.

"Don't blame yourself."

She shrugged, uncomfortable.

A tense moment stretched out before them. Lee shifted a little on his shoulder after a while. She finally glanced up at him. His coaxing expression was so manipulatively endearing it was frakking impossible for a person to stay in a foul mood. Kara rolled her eyes again and gave in.

"I just wish you would have given me some warning you were coming, Lee. I could have been doing some pushups or something so you could say this seemed familiar," she joked, hoping he would play along.

He did.

"I don't know… me standing here… and you behind bars," he frowned lightly, "Feels pretty familiar."

Kara glanced down at her book to memorize the page number and swung her legs over the side of the cot. She laid the book down on the blanket and walked towards him.

He nodded in the direction of her cot, "What were you reading?"

She came to stand in front of him, hands curling around the bars on either side of his shoulder.

Kara lowered her tone and gave her words a bit of grandeur, "That would be _Caprican Art: Masterpieces Predating the Articles of Colonization_." She dropped her head to the side, "Your father lent it to me, along with several others."

"That was nice of him," Lee looked down to his left. Kara's gaze traced over the smooth curves and crisp slashes of his profile.

"Maybe I'd believe you, Lee, if your jaw wasn't so tight a bullet would glance off of it."

Lee stole a look at her out of the corner of his eyes, "Maybe I'd think it was nice of him if he wasn't the reason you were sitting in the brig in the first place."

Kara pulled a face and shrugged. He had her there.

Another long silence passed between them, but this one was familiar, comfortable. Kara leaned her head against the bars, that much closer to him.

"So a guy walks into a brig…" she teased.

Lee cocked his brow as she'd seen him do a thousand and one times before, meeting her gaze. Exasperation and superiority and tenderness. Lee.

"And there's this…this _bad ass_ blond…," she frowned, still joking, "Stop me if you've heard this one before-"

"I think I have. A few times actually."

Kara narrowed her eyes, grinning a bit, "Oh yeah? Then how does it end?"

His eyes took on a serious glint, "I don't know yet."

The nostalgia and sense of weariness that lay over him like a bittersweet blanket of memory slowly wrapped around her as well. She licked her dry lips, "Do they end up happy, you think?"

He abruptly turned all the way towards her, oblivious to their audience of one, and leaned in, wrapping his hands over hers where they grasped the bars. Their eyes met like hands clasping or lips meeting. Like a spark of connection that predates a fire.

His voice was low, "I hope so."

When the guards came for her, she was past the ability to be surprised. Truth be told, she halfway expected them to drag her to the airlock first thing.

So the CIC was at least a cut above that, even if she was standing in the center of it with her hands bound behind her.

It was almost amusing the way the lights and sounds of the computers and the crew went on as if it were just business as usual.

Printouts slid out of machines. The consistent whir of dradis kept time with her breathing. Or perhaps she was keeping time with it.

She remained outwardly calm and waited. Inwardly, the rope pulled tighter, fraying, ready to snap.

Roslin indicated the FTL station, only feet away from where she'd been positioned.

"It's right there, Captain, according to you. The way to Earth."

Kara never blinked. In her mind's eye she lay back on that green grass and shut her eyes against the sun's warm rays, sweet winds' whispers all around.

"I'm not the one you need to be explaining that to, Madam President."

The older woman paced around her in a wide circle, watching. Behind her, the Admiral looked down at the ground.

"I want the names of those cylons in our fleet, Captain Thrace. Give them to me, and once we've found a way to verify what you've told us, you'll be released and brought back here. Mister Gaeta will step aside, and you will do us the honor of jumping us to Earth."

Kara turned her head slowly to meet the President's gaze, "Tempting… But I'll pass."

"Why?" the word, spoken so softly, would have seemed innocent coming from any other person. Coming from Roslin, it lashed like a whip. It tore through Kara's daydream, dispelling all thoughts of lush planets and peaceful futures.

Kara narrowed her eyes. She wasn't going to give up Sam, or the Chief, or Tigh, or even Tory for that matter for a bunch of people who didn't believe in her anyway. Trust went both ways.

"Because it will do more harm than good," Kara looked the older woman in the eye, they stared at each other, fire met steel. "I've thought this through, Madam President. Knowing that those we serve side by side with are cylons will only bring down morale, incite mutiny," Kara couldn't stop the disgusted look she shot Lt. Geata out of the corner of her eye. "Everything will go to hell in a hand basket while you figure out what to do with them. By the time you allow me to jump us to Earth-if you even do-there won't be much left to jump. Trust me, I know."

"But I don't…trust you…Captain Thrace." Laura Roslin gave the condemning words an almost lyrical rhythm, "That's the problem."

Kara thought about how lovely it would be to just turn around and show Laura Roslin her back as she strolled away, bound hands and all. Just leave the President standing there in the CIC to toil and spin her web without her to wrap at the center of it.

Roslin tightened the circle, pacing a little closer, "I think you're protecting them, because you're one of them."

Kara looked around a little. Maybe she should find out. Of course, there was the little matter of getting so far as the communication station without getting a bullet to the back.

Her aimless gaze fell on Saul Tigh. He was watching from the background with great interest though he was trying very hard not to show it.

"You're wrong," Kara returned simply, eyes on his. His eye widened considerably at her direct, knowing look. She returned her gaze to Roslin.

"The Final Five are of no threat to us. Knowing they're Cylons hasn't changed the fact that they've been human for as long as they can remember. They don't know any other way to be. Betraying us would be like betraying themselves…"

Kara felt less certain of this concerning Tory, but for the sake of Sam, Chief, and the old Colonel, she decided not to elaborate.

She shifted her eyes back to Tigh, "They're not like Boomer, Madam President. There is no hidden switch, some secret agenda programmed into their software. They're not sleeper agents. They're just…like us."

Tigh blinked and stared at her face as if she had just given him a gift. Kara had never seen that kind of look on the old Colonel's weathered face before. Certainly not directed at her. It was almost comical if she thought about it too long in the state she was in.

But it was all there, in his face. How could they not see it right before them? Tigh thought about it, constantly. He went to bed worrying about whom he would kill or betray, and he woke up hoping today wouldn't be the day that he did it.

There was a measure of satisfaction in knowing she had at least done this one thing right.

The sound of the President clearing her throat brought Kara out of her short-lived reverie.

"They're _just like us_." The way Roslin repeated her words didn't inspire Kara with confidence. She remained silent, cautious.

"An interesting message, Captain," a flick of her hand brought the guards to Kara's side, "And now I'm afraid you've forced me to send you a message as well."

Kara narrowed her eyes. Whatever was coming next, she knew she wasn't going to like it.

The President sounded genuinely regretful, "Guards, please escort Captain Thrace to the launch tube."

The Admiral glanced up quickly, clearly startled or putting on a good show of it.

Kara burst out laughing in the President's face, a nervous reaction, "You're going to airlock me? How is that going to help anyone?"

"I have reason to believe you are a Cylon, Captain. If you realize that you are out of choices and choose to reveal who the Final Five cylons in the Fleet are, then you will be released, unharmed. If you choose to keep your secret, you leave me no choice but to believe that I have at least eliminated one out of five." Roslin nodded sharply to the marines, "You have your orders."

A guard on either side of her took an arm in hand, Kara tried very hard not to panic as the realization of what was happening set in. Kara Thrace did not want to die. Not again.

She could barely hear Adama's low, broken voice over the blood rushing in her ears as they led her away. He and the President were following behind.

"And what if she's just suffering from a breakdown? What if she doesn't even know what she's saying? Then what? You've sentenced her to die for _what? _What crime? Burning out while serving the fleet?"

Kara didn't hear the President's reply. She was too far away; two more guards closing in behind her as she was hauled through the hatch and down the corridor without further ado. A man in uniform came alongside the guard latched onto her right arm. She glanced over with burning eyes and saw the XO.

Tigh stared at her, and an understanding passed between them. She hadn't sold them out; he owed her one. And he was coming along.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Kara, the guards, her two potential executioners, and one possible ally had rounded a third corner on the way to the launch tube before the Admiral took note of Saul Tigh's presence.

"Colonel?"

Tigh looked back at Adama with a ready answer, clearly having expected it sooner, "I left Mr. Gaeta in charge."

There was a moment where no one spoke and only their boots hitting the ground made a sound. Several passersby made a wide birth around their solemn procession, casting curious and/or suspicious looks Kara's way.

As they reached their destination, Adama spoke again, "I have to say, Colonel. I wouldn't have thought you'd want to come along for this."

They entered the spacious room and headed for the launch tube offshoot. Everything echoed hollow now. Inside Kara's head and out.

"I have my reasons," Tigh muttered simply.

Kara found herself _helped_ over a ledge in the floor and positioned in the center of the cold, lengthwise room. Their work here done, the guards stepped away and left her standing alone with hands bound before her. Kara thought back to the time when it had been Saul Tigh standing here instead. Perhaps that was why he was here. Perhaps a part of him knew it should have been him.

A couple of the guards filed passed the old Colonel as he started forward, walking towards where she'd been left.

The Admiral stopped and stared. The President halted on her path to the observation booth and walked back to where Adama stood, standing slightly behind him and to the side.

"Saul! What are you doing?" If Adama had been nonplussed by Tigh's presence before, he was damn near stunned by this development.

Tigh drew up alongside her and turned to face the two heads of power with her, "Preparing to be deep spaced, apparently."

Kara involuntarily expelled a rough breath like she'd taken a blow to the gut. She turned slowly to stare at the Colonel. Okay. None of this was real. She had fallen asleep on that hill on New Earth or something and her dream conscious was running wild.

There was a stunned moment of silence for all of them. The Admiral recovered first, "Get out of there! Have we all lost our minds?"

"It's possible." Tigh's gravelly voice was remarkably unmoved.

"Why are you doing this?" Adama was too busy getting worked up to see, but Kara saw a flash of appalled understanding on Roslin's face a moment before Tigh answered.

"Because, Bill. I'm one of them."

"One of what? What are you talking about?" Bill Adama's face was turning a vibrant terra cotta shade.

"One of the five. One of the Cylons. I'm one of them." Tigh didn't move a muscle as he spoke. Neither did Kara.

"Now I know you've lost your frakkin' mind," Adama leaned forward, Roslin laid a hand on his arm.

"It's true, Bill. So you might as well airlock me." The Colonel stood now, as proud and solemn in the face of horror as Kara remembered. The sense of déjà vu was strong.

"Colonel, you cannot be serious," the President finally spoke. Her tone was almost gentle, sorrow beneath the strength.

Kara was pretty sure Roslin knew damn well that Saul Tigh was serious, but it was like her to force all the cards out onto the table.

"I am."

"And the Captain?" Roslin again.

"Not a Cylon. But she's so god's damn busy trying to _protect _everyone from the truth while still trying to _give_ them the truth, she's gone and frakked herself up but good."

Kara couldn't have said it better herself.

"This is some sort of Cylon trick," Adama bit out.

"Not really my brand of humor, Bill. But then, you know that."

"I know _you_, Saul. And you're no Cylon."

"I'd love to lie and tell you otherwise. But the truth is I've wanted to say something for a long time. It's about time I manned up and admitted it. To myself, and everyone else. I'm a frakking Cylon, and I have been from the start."

Kara could see the wheels turning in Laura Roslin's gaze even from where she stood, "Captain, is he telling the truth? Is he one of the Final Five?" Roslin walked around to stand in front of the distraught Admiral.

Kara wanted to laugh, "You're asking _me_, if he's telling the truth?" She continued in a mutter, "The winds of change blow mighty fast around here."

Tigh grunted in what might have been agreement.

"_Is_ he… telling… _the truth_?" Roslin's escalating voice cracked like a whip.

Kara looked over at him, he barely nodded.

Kara faced forward, "Yes."

"Who are the others?"

Silence.

"You're not leaving me much of a choice."

Kara had no doubt of that but it was Tigh who responded.

"Do what you have to do, Madam President. But if I may be so bold- If you deep space the Captain along with me, I think it's possible you may be flushing the only chance we have for finding Earth out the airlock."

"So _the Cylon_ wants us to listen to Captain Thrace," the President spoke, a note of exasperation in her tone.

"Has nothing to do with my being a Cylon. I just haven't seen any other offers coming our way."

Adama finally broke in. Perhaps he had needed the time to recover. "This is_ absurd_. No one is a Cylon. No one is getting air locked. This has all gotten out of hand."

Laura Roslin turned her back to them and spoke to the Admiral, lowering her voice. Kara could barely make out what was being said.

"Bill….Why would he lie?"

"I don't know. But he is…He has to be." That was Adama, Kara could still hear him just fine.

Movement at the edge of the launch tube-behind the Admiral and the President, behind the guards-caught Kara's eye. Cally Tyrol's startled gaze swept over the scene before her, she was holding her small son in her thin arms. There were rings under her eyes like bruises and a pinch to her mouth like pain. The young mother took a quick step back, taking it all in, then dropped her gaze like an apology and disappeared.

"Bill…listen to me," Laura Roslin's ruthlessly gentle voice brought Kara back to the tragedy at hand.

"Stop this," the Admiral slashed a hand through the air, visibly agitated. "This is getting us nowhere. I'm not going to watch the people I love get flushed out of an airlock because they've lost their frakking minds."

Roslin crossed her arms, so calm, "And if they haven't? If they're telling the truth?"

"Then Kara knows the way to Earth and they both know the identities of the four other Cylons in the fleet. Cutting them loose into deep space isn't going to give us the answers we need, Laura."

More silence. Kara felt as if her breathing were the loudest sound in the room.

Roslin seemed to come to a conclusion, "Fine. Remove the prisoner. Arrest Colonel Tigh as well. Take them to the brig."

She brushed past the Admiral briskly, "We need to talk."

Adama was only half-listening, his eyes fell on Kara and Tigh both as the guards moved in once more to haul them away. The lookon his face. Confusion. Devastation. Fear. A heart well-broken.

Kara stared straight ahead, unable to bear the intensity of his expression; marching in tandem with the surrounding guards.

They passed by the Admiral in silence.

"Are you the fifth?"

Kara glanced up quickly, meeting the Colonel's shrewd gaze. She scowled up at him and lowered her voice for the sake of the guards though it was probably pointless.

"I thought you told them I wasn't a Cylon? Why say that if you don't believe me?"

"Not a matter of believing one way or the other. I just figured if you know the way to Earth, there was no point in dragging you out the airlock with me. It's not as if _I_ have a frakkin' clue where it is."

Kara's frown deepened. It made sense. Sort of.

"Ellen's the fifth."

Tigh stopped walking and the guards behind them shoved him forward a bit. The Colonel threw a menacing glare behind him that had the marines re-thinking that decision.

"How can you…Are you sure about that?" his voice had dropped, almost reverent now.

"Yes. She's with Cavil now. She downloaded after New Caprica."

Tigh stared at her, clearly stunned, "How do we find her?"

The guard to Kara's left was watching them both with a mixture of disgust and fascination.

Kara glared at him in open defiance. He begrudgingly faced forward once more.

She shook her head and muttered to Tigh "She finds _us_."

Kara looked aside in time to see Tory Foster walking briskly past them, throwing Tigh a look two parts incredulous anger and one part concern. It was wasted on Tigh though, who was completely engrossed with thoughts of what had been his seemingly dead wife.

He spoke again after a dead pause, "And you know the way to Earth."

"It's in the song," Kara watched Tigh's expression become more alert. "The song you heard in the ship before you realized you were a Cylon. It's in the notes, in the music. They form a sequence. I'll see the pattern."

Kara hated when words seemed to just spill out of her like that. The least she could manage to spout off like that frakker Leoben in the future, the happier she would be.

"I don't believe it." It was clear by his tone that he did, but was still processing.

"Get in line," Kara muttered.

Tigh gave her a sideways glance, "How long have you known?"

These guards were just getting an _earful_. No matter, Kara had been torturing her guard in the brig for weeks with random insanities. He was walking in front of them right now, wearing a longsuffering expression. 

"About Earth?"

Tigh nodded briskly.

"Since before the Nebula."

"How?" His voice was gruff, urgent. He thought she had all the answers.

Kara gave him a defeated shrug, "Let's just say I've passed this way before."

Tigh wore a thoughtful expression, "I've been hearing things lately-from Bill-about you. I thought you were off your frakkin' nut until I saw you for myself in the CIC today. You're different, Starbuck. You know things…React differently. A person doesn't just change overnight like that for no good reason."

She considered that for a moment, then looked over at him, almost grimacing, "You know whenever we do this whole bonding thing it creeps me the frak out, right?"

Tigh made a short sound that might have been a dry laugh.

"Agreed."

They were mutually silent for several more turns down Galactica's pathways.

When they reached the brig, two guards remained outside the hatch. Three more escorted the prisoners inside.

Kara was pushed into a cell by one marine, while Tigh's cuffs were removed by another in the cell beside her. A third stood guard.

She averted her face, stood stiffly, looking off to the corner of the brig while her guard stood before her undoing her restraints.

She rubbed the tender skin of her wrists absently as her guard slid the cell door shut behind him with that maddening clank.

Two of the marines headed out the hatch, leaving one to stand guard. Kara slapped her hands on her knees, dropping down to her cot with a heavy, ragged sigh. She glanced over at the old Colonel who was unbuttoning his uniform jacket and making himself comfortable on his own bed.

"The Old Man will come around. He just…just needs time," a note of uncertainty-fear perhaps-entered his voice, " It's a lot to process…he just needs time." 

He finished unbuttoning his jacket and laid back on the cot, jacket flap lying open, staring up at the ceiling.

"He'll come around…"

_She waded through a field of tall grass. The wind whispered things she already knew but didn't want to face. So low, so faint, she could still choose not to hear._

_Her breathing sounded in her ears, unnaturally loud, insulating her thoughts inside herself. Like wading through water instead of grass._

_She wandered without seeming purpose or direction, but deep down she knew what she was looking for._

_There up ahead, an imprint in the sea of grass. Something large and heavy. Something that shouldn't be there. She stopped and turned her head in it's direction, shielded her eyes. The sky was bright under the gray cloud cover, as a gloomy day somehow is without the sun._

_And then she was there, standing in front of it, though she was sure she hadn't moved. _

_Something ugly and charred, something that shouldn't be. A skull, no face. A body, no flesh. Strands of gossamer blond made grotesque in their setting._

"_Why am I here?" she whispered._

"_Why are you _where_?" She wasn't alone. A man with blond hair stood beside her and spoke. A man with a face she had feared until he had run from her own. He had abandoned her here in this very spot. Left her to ask the questions alone._

_Kara scowled, staring at the shell of herself sitting there in that incinerated cockpit._

"_Here, on Galactica. Sent back from New Earth," she answered fiercely. She gestured briskly to the blackened skeleton and continued, "Here, in this cockpit. My body lying there even though I'm still living."_

"_One question answers the other."_

_She turned on him then. Angry in the face of his calm. Tired of the word games and the destinies._

"_What does that mean?"_

"_It means you came back for someone. Someone who died. Someone who died on the way to the new Earth."_

"_Who? I've tried to save everyone. It isn't working. They won't listen," Kara gritted, stepping closer to him. _

_He wasn't even listening._

"_It's you, Kara Thrace. You came back for yourself," he looked down at her ugly corpse._

"_I don't believe you," Angry tears and broken faces. One in the cockpit, one standing above, "It has to be more than that."_

"_It's what you wanted, Kara. To go back, to undo the thing you wish you hadn't done. To have the chance to live your life on your own terms. You couldn't do that in the shell that carried your soul. You needed to be…human...again."_

_He leaned in a little, brushed the side of her face almost tenderly. She flinched then knocked his hand away brutally. He only smiled as she gritted; struggled._

"_This can't all be about me."_

_Kara reached out a shaking hand, fingered the charred dog tags hanging about her ruined body's neck." I…I've messed everything up. What's the point of any of this if I can't get us back?" _

_She whispered brokenly, "What if I can't get them back?"_

_She looked up at him then, expression fierce._

"_What if I can't!"_

_She spoke to the air. He was always gone. The questions were never answered. The breeze blew softly, silence all around._

Kara came awake with a hitch in her breathing, the memories of her dream still strong; wrapped around her thoughts like cobwebs. Her fingers were tangled in the chain and dog tags circling her throat. She fumbled for a moment before releasing them.

It was the middle of the night. Kara was sure of it because the guard who took the night shift had been humming softly to himself as he always did while reading as her eyes had slit shut for the last time.

Her lashes fluttered open, she shot up quickly and squinted. The light in the brig was dim but still bright to her sleep softened gaze as it adjusted. Someone was closing the hatch behind them, the sight explaining what had awakened her from her deep sleep. Who would be visiting her in the middle of the night?

"I need to see the prisoner."

Lee's voice was a deadly sort of quiet, slicing through the stillness. Her guard considered him warily, clearly unsure of what his reaction should be to the Major's unexpected visit. In the end, he simply nodded beneath his helmet and sat back down.

Kara frowned a little, feeling melancholy after her near-airlocking and that cloyingly disturbing dream. She sat on the edge of the cot watching quietly, sad and still as Lee strode up close to the bars.

They both looked at each other for a moment, a hint of resignation in their eyes. His jaw was shadowed, his hair was disheveled, and he was still wearing his jock smock and the look of a threatened man.

"Kara," his smooth expression faltered a bit, his head tilted in an attentive manner, "Kara, are you alright?"

She dropped away from his gaze, studying the cell's floor, and shrugged a little.

"I came as soon as I could," he shifted on his feet, and she looked back to him. He looked so tired.

"I had just gotten off my rotation when I heard what happened," he continued. "I went straight to the Admiral but…as it turns out, my dad is…" his mouth thinned as he turned aside, searching for the right words. After a moment he leaned towards her cell and spoke in a lower tone, "I just came from his quarters…I've never seen him like that before, Kara. He's just…broken."

Kara had nothing to say to that. Nothing that could make it right for any of them.

Lee was grabbing at the bars now until his knuckles turned white as if he could press right through them to her, "Kara, please talk to me."

What did he need from her? What could she possibly say that would help this frakked up situation?

"I just need to know you're okay, Kara," impatient now, though his voice had a layer of concern laid over it.

"I'm alright, Lee," she mustered a bittersweet smile; thought about how much she needed him like this. Pushing her, caring too much when she didn't want to care at all.

His brow furrowed, "No, you're not."

She had no answer to that, slid her hand along her shin, smoothing the leg of her pants. She wanted to pull her legs up to her chest and set her chin on them- curl into herself- but it seemed self-indulgent when he was already worried about her.

Lee's hand slid up along the bar, above his head. He leaned his forehead against his arm. He sighed roughly, eyes on her.

"What are we going to do, Kara?"

She turned sharply and silently searched his eyes for a very long time, his gaze narrowed at her intense scrutiny but he didn't look away. She finally blinked rapidly, mouth pulled tight and looked away, releasing him. Hoping he would return the favor.

"I need to get out of here, Lee." It wasn't a statement. It was an appeal. She glanced back hesitantly.

The skin around his eyes tightened, his lips pressed into a straight line. She could see in his steady cobalt gaze when he'd made his decision. He gave a sharp nod and straightened, he turned towards the guard.

"Open the cell," he inclined his own head towards the padlock.

The marine stood slowly, expression disbelieving. At Lee's set face and continued silence, the other man's own look slowly took on realization and a determined edge.

"_No, sir_. I'm sorry, sir, but the Admiral gave explicit orders…"

There was a click and the slide of a sidearm slipping from it's holster sounding sharp in the silence. His arm stretched out to its length and the rattle and snap of a pistol aimed true followed on its heels.

Lee spoke with hushed steel, his weapon to the guards head, "Put down your weapon on the table and open the cell."

The guard just stared incredulously.

"_Now_, Private," Lee spoke a bit more sharply, stepping closer, gun still held high.

The marine sighed roughly and inwardly debated a moment more before slamming his heavy carbine down on the table.

"Now your sidearm."

The guard scowled and carefully reached for his side holster. He removed the weapon there and slowly placed it down.

"Open it."

The marine swore and began the walk to her cell, looking down and fumbling for the key.

Kara pushed off the cot, heart slamming in her chest, disentangling herself hurriedly from the blanket and tossing it back onto the mattress. She bent and began lacing up her boots with sharp, decisive movements.

The private inserted the key in the padlock and slid the cell door open with a disgusted sweep of his arm.

Lee's weapon hand tracked the guard's every movement as the marine finished his task and stepped to the side.

Lee flicked his wrist in the direction of Kara's cell.

"Now get in."

The guard narrowed his eyes, but moved to do as he was told.

Kara edged away from the guard as he passed by her, staying out of reach. She backed towards Lee and freedom.

"Get behind me, Kara."

And just like the marine, Kara narrowed her eyes but moved to do as she was told. There was a quiet intensity in Lee's eyes, in his voice, in the tension that ran down the length of his arm as he held the pistol steady, that told her it was safe to trust his instincts, his control.

Kara crossed her arms, standing at his back. Outside of the cage looking in.

"Apollo? What the devil? Are you out of your frakking mind?" The gravelly voice cut through the heavy silence, startling her from her thoughts.

Kara had almost forgotten all about Saul Tigh. The older man had been sleeping like the dead but was now shoving off briskly from his cot, alert and clearly nonplussed at the scene he'd awakened to.

Lee frowned at the older man for only a moment, eyes quickly returning to the guard, "Throw me the keys."

"Major Adama, allow me to remind you of the charges you face should-"

"Throw me the frakking keys, Private," Lee insisted evenly with raised brows, speaking right over the marine's last ditch effort. He caught them in mid-air with his free hand and looked over his shoulder at Kara where she stood and watched.

"Lock the door."

Kara caught the keys easily between her palms and walked forward, shutting the cell door on the guard with a decisive clang and turning the lock. She gave the bars a little rattle to make sure it was secure. She turned back to where Lee stood waiting.

"Done."

Tigh shook his head at them both, marching up to his bars, "Of all the frakking stupid things you've done, Apollo. This one-"

"Hardly rates?" Lee interrupted, walking to pick up the sidearm that had been surrendered by the guard and handing it to Kara.

She stepped away from the cell and checked the chamber while Tigh let out a surprised kind of snort.

"I suppose you're right about that," the old Colonel glanced distastefully from Kara to Lee then back again; shook his head.

Kara nodded her chin towards him, "So. You coming?"

Tigh frowned, his eye glinted with sadness, "And just where would I go, Captain? At least in here, the Old Man knows where to find me."

Lee's mouth twisted a little cynically at the older man's blind loyalty but he looked unsurprised; accepting even. Kara licked her parched lips, nodded briskly and shrugged off any guilt. It was his decision.

Kara had just taken a step back and turned towards the hatch when it began.

A tremendous shudder that started in soles of her feet and vibrated up through her limbs and torso to her head. It rumbled like approaching thunder when the storm has found you.

The entire ship quivered with the force of an impact. Kara fell forward, Lee caught her by the arm but her forward motion carried them both through, tugging him around with her as she stumbled. She slammed to the brig floor on all fours, the sidearm clacking against the floor, steel grinding into her bad knee. Lee fell over her on one knee, right hand outstretched to break his fall so he wouldn't crush her. His left hand gripped her shoulder.

They caught their breath and looked around. The guard had fallen onto his back, Tigh was gripping the bars of his cell for purchase.

Lee pulled her up by the shoulder with him, they stood together and turned about.

"What _the frak_ was that?" that was Tigh, speaking aloud what they were all thinking.

"It felt…it felt like something just tore into our starboard side," Lee stilled. They all did.

Another impact, this one from the port side. Surrounded.

The hull groaned like a thousand steel metal beams being bent in two, the floor moved without her. Kara reached a hand to grip Lee's arm, steadying herself moments before he had the same idea. Their arms locked across each other.

_Action stations. Action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship, this is not a drill…_

"You have to be frakking kidding me, " Kara muttered. Lee swore fiercely, dropped his hand and looked away.

He turned back and blew out a harsh breath, "This couldn't have happened at a worse time. Capt. Agathon is acting as XO but my dad is in no condition-"

Kara strode briskly to Tigh's cell, tried several keys, speaking sharply to him all the while, "I don't care what you have to do to make this right with the Admiral. Just do it and do it fast. Then get both of your asses to the CIC because Helo's going to need some help."

"_Kara_." Lee's exasperated voice barely registered as she fit in the right key and turned the lock. Tigh looked at her with a narrowed gaze but nodded, buttoning up his uniform with hurried movements.

"Kara, both of you are supposed to be _cylon prisoners_, you can't just go running about Galactica-"

"We'll take our chances," Kara strode up to where Lee stood tensely. Tigh marched past them still buttoning his jacket, headed for the hatch.

"Lee, I'm going to the hangar deck, suiting up, and getting in my viper. Are you coming with me?"

Lee shook his head, but there was only defeat in the gesture and maybe a measure of respect as well.

"Just keep your head down, Kara."

"Copy that," she reached out and grabbed Lee's arm, pulling him along with her.

"Hey. _Hey_! What about me?"

Kara threw a look over her shoulder at the disgruntled private, standing stiffly in the center of what had been her prison. She was still holding the keys.

She released her grip on Lee's arm and turned, lobbying the keys through the bars to the far inside corner of her cell. The guard turned to look at where they hit the floor with a clatter. Kara figured opening the cell from the inside shouldn't be too difficult.

She spun around, this time it was Lee pulling her forward.

"Let's go, Kara."

They shut the hatch behind them and broke into a dead run.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

_Action stations. Action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship, this is not a drill…_

There was one good thing about the utter chaos Kara and Lee ran out into. No one was going to be paying any attention to possible Cylon prisoners and their escape.

Crew members were rushing by, some were yelling, others grabbed at one another, seeking information, consolation.

Kara tucked her weapon into the small of her back, sprinting through the teaming mass towards the hangar deck. There was an air of panic that went beyond the usual for an attack; the sound of distant shouts. Something was so very wrong.

Sparks flew from some of the consoles, their digital screens flickering.

_Action stations. Action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship, this is not a drill…_

Another shudder, another impact. Kara was thrown down to the floor on her back. She sucked in a sharp breath as her elbow cracked against the floor. Lee was flung up against the bulkhead with bruising strength. He pushed stiffly away from the wall and reached out an arm to help her up. He clutched her outstretched arm and grunted a little he hauled her to her feet.

"Okay?"

She nodded briskly.

They resumed their sprint, darting around the corner into the next corridor.

A young male pilot with brown hair rushed towards them, throwing a look back over his shoulder.

"Toasters on the move, up ahead," he barked before he turned back around and his eyes widened with recognition.

"Kara!"

Sam drew up in front of her, oblivious to Lee who had stopped as well. He grasped her by the upper arms, breathing raggedly, sweat glistening above his upper lip.

"Kara, thank the gods. I figured you were still stuck in the brig. Everything's being shot to hell-you'd have been like a fish in a barrel," he gulped in a great breath of air.

Kara laid a hand on his chest, meeting his eyes in that way you do when you're trying to help someone calm and focus.

"We're pilots, Sam. We need to get to the hangar deck. The sooner we're in the sky the better." She attempted to drag him along with her for a few feet.

He shook his head stepping in front of her, "I don't think it'll make much difference, _four_ cylon base ships just jumped right on top of us."

Lee stepped slightly between them and to the side, eyes on Sam, "Then why haven't we commenced emergency jump preparations?"

"Mother frakkers took out our FTL first thing. Galactica's dead in the water, taking all the hits, trying to shield the Fleet…"

"_Frak_," Kara swore furiously, "I guess that explains why we're being tossed around like cubits in a jar."

Sam kept shaking his head, his voice took on an edge of despairing laughter, "It's going to be an all-out bloodbath, Kara. The raiders are suicide diving into the sides of the ships. It's like they have no sense of preservation any more. Heavy raiders too…Centurions are starting to board…I saw them…" he stopped, looking slightly overwhelmed.

Lee stiffened beside her, pulling out his weapon, "_Kara-_"

"I see it," Kara snapped, placing a firm hand on the back of Sam's head, "Get down!"

She shoved down with all her might, forcing Sam's body to bend and fold to the ground. A shot whizzed past her ear as they fell, loud and hot and too close.

The sound of Lee's weapon discharging repeatedly followed her to the floor, she reached behind her and pulled out her own sidearm. Her arm stretched across Sam's shoulders as she fired off multiple rounds. Several shots hit the centurion squarely in the visor where a menacing red bead slid to and fro. The glowing red dot stopped with a shower of sparks and a sizzle.

Kara and Sam scrambled out of their crouch and Kara threw an anxious look over her shoulder to see Lee pushing away from where he was flattened up against the bulkhead. There was just enough time for the three of them to sprint through the adjoining corridor opening. She could hear the sightless machine still struggling to engage its weapons behind them. A shower of directionless gunfire, still deadly. They turned a corner and a thrill coursed through her. She felt the inappropriate urge to laugh out loud.

Not only had none of that toaster's blasts had the chance to find the back of Samuel Ander's head, but they hadn't managed to put any new holes in her and Lee either.

Rejuvenated, she picked up her speed, more anxious than ever to get to the hangar deck and climb in her viper where she could do some serious damage.

"Thanks, Kara. I owe you one," Sam threw over his shoulder from where he ran just ahead of her and Lee. His words were no less sincere for his breathlessness.

"Anytime, Sammy." From where she was standing, she'd owed _him_ one.

The distant sounds of staccato centurion gunfire began to echo throughout Galactica's corridors, pushing them to run faster.

Kara's hurriedly obtained flight suit was still hanging halfway down her middle as the three of them sprinted across the upper landing.

They reached the ladder, the sound of their feet hitting the rungs, the uneven hitch of their breathing, was drowned out by the shouts of the deck hands and pilots below. Kara had to hold onto the side of the ladder for dear life as another impact shook the battlestar while she was still descending.

As soon as they walked out onto the deck, she could immediately count at least seven vipers that should have been in the air but weren't. And that was assuming all alert vipers were away, otherwise there could be even more. She didn't want to think about where those seven or more pilots were if they were not in their cockpits.

Lee was immediately off and running, organizing, shouting, prodding, and prepping the pilots and crew. Sam gave her shoulder a squeeze and then jogged off in the direction of his viper.

Kara spotted a familiar form crouched beneath a viper's belly. She ran towards him.

"Chief!"

He looked up, momentary surprise flashed in his eyes, then his expression settled back quickly into that look of determined concentration one wears in the midst of duty and battle. There was a nasty gash along his temple, bruising all along his hairline near the wound. He was pulling at some tubing.

"Captain."

"I'm going to need my bird, Chief," She scowled, dragging in deep breaths. Her lungs burned. She flattened her palm against the viper's body, bracing as another shudder rippled through the ship's hull.

Chief sliced off a bit of the tubing, replaced it, and stood.

His eyes narrowed, "If you're expecting an argument from me, Captain, you're not going to get it. Truth is, we can use every viper pilot we have and probably some we don't. Fresh from the brig or not."

Kara nodded briskly, relieved, slipping her arms into her suit's sleeves with sharp, agitated movements. She took turns holding her flight helmet in each arm.

"How did this happen?" She didn't really expect an answer so she was surprised when he replied.

"An eight, Boomer to be exact, sir, showed up not an hour ago. With Ellen Tigh in tow no less. Says she escaped from the one model, Cavil."

"Boomer?" Of course. It had happened before. Only this time, there were no Cylon allies and no need for Cavil to preserve information on Resurrection since he'd never lost it. There was only his blind hatred and a bunch of lobotomized raiders.

She felt a frisson of icy fear snake through the pit of her stomach. The little information she had painted an abstract picture, a jumble of puzzle pieces that tried to tell a story Kara wasn't sure she wanted to know the ending to.

Chief was nodding and moving towards her viper, unaware of her inner turmoil, "She says she came to warn us that Cavil had found us and was on his way. They took both women to a holding cell. About ten minutes later all hell breaks loose."

Kara marched after him, processing this while she laid her helmet on the deck and began emergency pre-flight procedures. Her hurried external inspection felt like being reunited with a long lost friend. She could do it in her sleep. Practically had.

"Tanks filled. Canopy Locks and explosive bolts to safe," Chief came up beside her where she stood next to the viper's ladder, "Good luck out there, Captain."

She nodded, "Thanks, Chief." He returned the nod absently and was already on to the next task. Lee passed him as he went.

"Major."

Lee nodded to the other man and pulled up in front of her. His eyes ran over the viper behind her as if he could foresee any potential damage. He turned to her and his expression was torn. They needed every available pilot; the chance was great that one or both of them was not coming back. Probably the latter. Did they ignore the fact that this could be goodbye?

Kara was so tired of saying goodbye to this man.

He reached out his right hand and took hers, his fingers wrapped around the outside of her hand, his thumb in the crook of hers. More clasp than shake. He tugged her forward with it and she met his gaze, inches from her own.

His eyes were so damn blue. His love so damn real.

"Good hunting, Captain."

_Frak that._

She swooped in and slid her mouth over his, tilting her head to the side, grabbing his jaw with her left hand and pressing closer, kissing harder, taking more; if only for a moment. His free hand came up to rest alongside her face, his touch feathery and warm. A low groan escaped from his throat; heat coiled in the pit of her stomach.

Somewhere, another raider decided to end its life in a fiery death against Galactica's hull. The ensuing blow to Galactica's stability had them both falling apart.

Lee surprised her, following her backwards step to kiss her quickly one last time, she touched the tip of her tongue to his lower lip as he slid away.

Kara looked down and to the side collecting her breath and her thoughts; zipping up her flight suit. She caught Sam doing a very poor job of trying to not stare in between pre-flight tasks. His expression was a complicated mixture of anger and jealousy, acceptance and apology as he looked away.

Kara felt the familiar guilt, but it was a little softer than before. Like the first echo. One day, if they lived through all this, maybe it wouldn't be so hard. She turned back to Lee who had missed nothing.

She licked her lips, smoothed out her expression, "I should go."

"So should I. Good luck out there, Starbuck," he tilted his head a little to the side and his lips pulled into the curve of a sad smile as he gave her a little salute and backed away.

It was only natural to return the smile, the salute, "You too, Apollo."

She spun around and snatched up her helmet, grabbed on to the cool metal sidebar of the ladder. Her right foot fell on the first rung, her left foot, the second.

She had just placed her foot on the third rung when there was a horrible booming, the sound of something crashing through heavy metal in the far corner of the spacious room. In that first moment, Kara feared a raider had just come through the walls of the hangar deck. She turned to the left and leaned out, still gripping the ladder.

She couldn't see much past the vipers, but she could hear. Deck hands and pilots alike shouting, gunfire. The clatter of tools being dropped and carts being turned over. And over this discordant harmony of violence laid the deadly rhythm of Centurion gunfire, punctuated by the metal clanking of their bodies in motion.

The deck hands would be unarmed, only a handful of pilots and some sidearms against who knows how many shiny metal death dealers. It was one of the worst places the Cylons could have chosen to attack. Minimal resistance, but the loss of the souls and their skills here would be immeasurable.

Kara thought fast.

She looked behind her, caught Sam's eye, "Sam! Tell the other pilots-get in your vipers-unlock your weapons!"

Sam looked at her as if she had lost her mind. She hated when people did that. It was probably always true, but hardly ever necessary, "_Now!"_

Sam began climbing the ladder to his own cockpit, yelling at the top of his lungs to the pilot nearest him, who returned the favor, and so on.

Kara dropped her helmet to the deck with a clatter and pulled herself up the rest of the ladder. She threw herself into the seat, breathing hard, feeling a little dizzy with the rush of fear and adrenaline.

She stared at the panel for a moment, unseeing, before her training took over. A flip of a switch. The pull of a lever.

Weapons safety: Off. Weapons: Armed.

Kara felt a moment of self-doubt. She was about to basically go weapons free _inside the ship_. And she'd told the other pilots to do the same.

The possibility of structural damage…

Kara thought of the lives that were at stake here.

…was worth it.

She could see at least three in her line of sights. With the vipers parked in varying angles at different intervals along the deck, she could only hope they crossed the pilots' crosshairs at least once.

Her shield was still back, though she couldn't be certain anyone could hear her in the mayhem. She stood up a little in the cockpit.

"_Get back! Everybody out of the way! Let's go, let's go, let's go_!" her throat protested the mistreatment as she roared at the top of her lungs.

She waited until she was sure only the bulkhead and the Centurions were at stake, then mashed her thumb down and braced herself against the rippling shudder of her viper as it released it's weapons power.

There was the satisfying screech of metal being shredded, of robotic machinery exploding in a burnt sienna cloud of fire and sparks.

She could hear the other pilots following her lead at varying intervals. Another Centurion had the misfortune of clanking past her viper's nose. Her viper's firepower made scrap metal of him too, but tore a hole through the hangar deck wall as well. Kara knew it couldn't be the only one. There was an unnerving feel of wind rushing past and slowly, silence.

It took a second for Kara to notice the complete chaos of sound had died down to nothing but the whistle of that wind and the unmistakable cries of pain.

Kara shoved out of the cockpit with slick palms and trembling hands and half-climbed, half-slipped down the ladder to the deck below.

She looked around. The air felt too thin. Her lungs burned.

Bodies littered the ground that should have been in the sky instead, and she caught glimpses of twisted metallic forms and robotic blood-stained limbs among the carnage. And still the unsettling feel of wind streaming over her skin.

Chief stood not two yards to her left. The woman at his feet wasn't moving. Several deck hands rushed past carrying a fallen comrade amongst them. Kara watched them go.

Chief looked around, real fear in his eyes. "Well, that takes care of the frakking toasters…but I think it's safe to say we sustained some structural damage."

"We're depressurizing, " Sam walked up and concluded, almost laughing at the sheer awfulness of it all.

Chief nodded.

Kara could see bodies strewn behind carts and crates, barrels and vipers. Too many bodies. She thought she'd saved them.

She turned from the two men and began walking again, slowly this time.

"Kara?" That was Sam.

But Kara wasn't listening. More shouts echoed from a nearby huddle of survivors. Someone was weeping very loudly at her back and to the right. The wind kept whistling. It carried the unmistakable smell of death with it.

She stopped suddenly and spun around. Chief stopped speaking with Sam, his expression became guarded.

"Did you see Lee?" Her voice came casual. Too casual.

She turned away almost absently, she spotted a young woman-Cally, maybe?- crying off in the distance. A fellow mechanic was slumped over a worktable beside her.

Chief came up next to her. She hadn't even seen him move. Kara grabbed at his arm for a moment as the Galactica sustained another missile attack. They steadied themselves after impact. It was almost like habit now.

"Captain, it all happened so quickly-"

"Where?" she interrupted, glancing over her shoulder then back to him. Her grip on her weapon tightened, her knuckles gleamed white.

She saw the Chief swallow, his expression solemn, almost respectful, "I saw him heading in that direction when it started, Captain."

She turned slowly in the direction of his nod. It was the direction the Centurions had come from.

A deck hand jostled her as he ran past, holding his stomach as if in pain. She could hear the sounds of him getting sick nearby. Sam might have been speaking, trying to hold her back by the arm. She couldn't be sure. Chief might have laid a hand on her shoulder for a moment. She might have tripped over a body, she might have loosened her grip on her weapon.

She rounded one viper then another, stepping over her fallen comrades, one by one. There was no shouting, no wind, no Chief, no Sam, no sound at all.

There was one more viper to her left, blocking her view. She could feel the subtle shaking begin in her hands, travel up her arms to her shoulders, her chest, spreading outwards. Why is it that when terrible things happen you always got this feeling of _knowing_? Why couldn't you just stay oblivious for a few more precious moments?

Kara rounded the last viper and counted two centurions, bent and twisted on the surface of the deck. There was a deckhand, his orange jumper contrasting in an obscenely cheerful way with the brightness of his spilled blood. There was green there as well.

There was a pilot closer to where she stood, a nugget that Kara had barely met during her brief return to flight status. What was his call sign? She focused on his body with fierce determination, her mind insisted that she remember the name, that she had to. That she couldn't look to the other body just yet. _Rebound. _His call sign was Rebound.

She recalled it too quickly. There was nothing to do but look to the other pilot.

His arm was lying at his side, still holding the grip of his sidearm. His hair was brown, his face and form familiar. His head was turned, she could make out his still features… if she wanted to.

She might have dropped her weapon then, and she might have stumbled forward. She might have dropped to her knees beside him, and she might have died a little.

He was still beautiful. There was blood-the evidence of pain. It seemed wrong that he should still be beautiful. Her trembling hand reached out and felt the place where his heart should beat. The blood seeped through, covering her fingers, she pressed harder as if that would keep it inside of him.

"_No_." The sound was guttural, torn from her body. It didn't sound like her.

She leaned over him, covered him with life, pressing her face into the still-warm curve of his throat. Strands of her hair dragged through his blood. It smeared down her front. She didn't care.

In her young life, Kara Thrace had experienced more pain, more heartache, than any soul should be expected to. Life had dealt her an extraordinarily cruel hand. But this? This was new.

She lifted his body, held him to her own, so close. As if she could share her heartbeat.

There was pain, and there was heartache. But it was more than that. A sense of never belonging again. The feeling that she had been cut loose, set adrift. Nothing to hold onto, nothing to return to again. She was lost and always would be now. To lose family, friend, lover, touchstone. To lose all that and more in one moment. How did anyone survive that; recover?

A sob tore from her throat, her chest felt white hot, her whole body cramped as if it wanted to curl into itself, as if she were collapsing in on herself like a dying star.

"Kara?" someone was pulling her back, hands on her shoulders, "Kara, baby, I'm sorry. We have to go. You were right, they need us out there. In the sky, killing off every last frakking toaster that we can. Come on, come on, Kara. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Her shoulders shook beneath his hands, her chest heaving.

"I can't breathe."

Sam heard her gritted words, tried to pull her up again, "It's the walls, Kara. We're depressurizing, losing oxygen. We need to get out of here fast."

Kara shook her head, what was he even talking about?

"_I can't breathe, Sam."_

"Kara," he knelt beside her, forced her head up with his hands so he could look at her. "We have to go."

She looked him in the eye, she didn't see him.

"I wish I'd never come back."

Sam frowned, not understanding, "Come on, Kara. Come on. There's nothing we can do for him now. He's gone."

It hurt too much. She wouldn't survive it. A hot tear rushed down her face and dripped off her chin. Her stomach began to spasm in that way that let you know you might be violently ill. She swallowed, choked.

"Kara?"

"Go," almost a growl, "Go, Sam."

Something in her face convinced him, he dropped his hands from her and stood, pacing to a spot several feet away. He turned his back. Waited.

She hated that he waited. That he knew life would go on and so would she. At the moment, it seemed to her unthinkable.

She looked down at him one last time, pressed trembling fingers, covered in his dried blood, over his cheekbones, his jaw; thumb across his lips. She bent and kissed him softly, held there for a moment, hesitated; thought of the words.

_Kara Thrace loves Lee Adama._

Love. It meant nothing. _Love_. This was so much more than that. She_ needed _him. He was a basic necessity.

Her expression unnaturally fierce, she laid him down but kept the burden. She methodically removed his dog tags, slipping them over her head to hang over her own beneath her shirt. There was nothing left for her to do now but to go down fighting. It was only fitting that she take a part of him with her when she did.

Kara backed away from him slowly, had to shut her eyes and turn away. Had to not think about him, had to pretend this hadn't happened. There was no other way she could continue, no other way she could move on, follow through.

Sam was careful not to touch her as she pulled alongside him, they turned and took a few strides in the direction of their vipers. She could feel Sam's eyes on her face. She kept her gaze straight ahead.

"Captain, there you are." There was blood splattered across the Lt. Dualla's chin and jaw, she was pulling in deep shuddering breaths, there was a look to her eyes that said she was just holding it together.

Kara struggled to focus on the words, the sounds and syllables barely registered through the white hot curtain of ache that seemed to hang between her and the rest of the world. Nevertheless, she found herself moving closer to the dark-haired officer, blocking the other woman's view, shielding her from…from what was there.

"The Admiral sent us," Dee continued in that clipped, harried tone," She looked aside to the lone, uniformed guard at her side. "There were four of us…" she said, almost as if to herself. She shook her head, "We need to get back to the CIC. Now."

Kara looked at her, tone lifeless, jaw tight, "Why? I'm a pilot. My place is in that cockpit over there."

Dee shook her head, still breathless, "We fixed the FTL. Temporarily. It's only a matter of time before they figure that out and disable us again," she hesitated, as if she were struggling through a personal disagreement with the words she'd been ordered to say, "The Admiral wants you to jump us out of here."

It was probably the one thing that could have pierced through the fog of pain.

Kara scowled and swallowed back the tears that still wanted to come, "You've got to be frakking kidding me."

Dee scowled, "Sure, Captain. We fought through the Centurions-two other guards _died _alongside of us-so that we could come down here and play a joke on you," with that, she whirled about and marched away.

Kara rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes roughly and looked around.

She'd dropped her weapon…

_No, gods no. _She wasn't walking back there.

"Kara?"

Sam.

Kara spun around, looked Sam right in the eye, "I need my sidearm."

"Kara, what's going on-?"

"_Now, Sam_," she growled.

He frowned, but sighed and turned.

Kara looked away while Sam went to retrieve her weapon. She felt him come along behind her, he silently slid the grip into her hand, her fingers tightened around it.

She turned her head to the side and spoke concisely, "Don't go out, Sam. And don't let anyone else go up, either. We're calling all of our birds in."

Kara turned back around, held her face like stone and strode purposefully after Dee and the marine.

"We're going home." A lie. Her home was gone.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Main Entry:

**1****har·bin·ger**

_1 archaic_ **:** a person sent ahead to provide lodgings

2 one that pioneers in or initiates a major change

A spray of deadly Centurion firepower fanned across the width of the corridor, each blast sinking its teeth into the bulkhead, the floor, human flesh.

Kara slammed Lt. Dualla down to the ground with her hand spread over the back of her head, shielded the smaller woman with her body. The last marine to accompany Dee from the CIC fell to the ground beside them with a final cry to testify of pain.

Kara threw a quick glance back over her shoulder, slung back her outstretched arm, glistening with sweat; fired off several rounds. She rolled all the way over and shoved off the floor with her palms, heading for the corridor to the right at a dead run. She looked back at Dee, still on the floor, and made a corralling motion with her hand.

"_Move, move, move!"_

She leaned around the corner and covered Dee's retreat. She had long since shed her flight suit, needed to breathe, needed the agility. When they were both reunited Kara swiped the beads of sweat off her brow with the inside crook of her arm, still holding onto her weapons-a small sidearm, and a CX4 courtesy of a fallen marine. Dee skidded on some blood as they picked up the pace. They weren't just running now, they were racing for their very lives. _And everyone else's._

"Starbuck!"

Dee grabbed her by the arm and slammed her back against the bulkhead. The two women turned to look at each other, breathing hard, backs to the wall.

"There are two of them, dead ahead, behind that bend in the corridor, " Dee relayed in her husky whisper, "They didn't see us. They're facing the other way."

"Is there a better way to the CIC from here?"

Dee shook her head, "It'll take too long. This is the quickest route."

"We have two sidearms and a prayer, Lieutenant," Kara ground her teeth together, "What does that tell you?"

"It tells me that grabbing this off of our brave marine friend was a good idea."

Kara looked down at Dee's unfurling fingers. A small explosive was cradled in her bloody palm.

In another time Kara might have made a wisecrack in response, some smart-ass remark, now all she could do was exhale a shuddering breath and nod gratefully.

"Okay then. You throw the explosive directly at the first one's head and I'll follow. Don't come out until the situation's neutralized." Kara pushed off the wall.

"Starbuck!" Dee shouted after her, "_Kara_!"

"_Now_, dammit!"

The small destructive device flew by Kara's head and made contact with the back of one of the centurions' helmet-like skull with surprising accuracy, exploding and knocking it clean off its shoulders.

Kara was only a second behind, she sprinted through the gap between the collapsing centurion and the intact one and threw herself onto the ground on a turn, skidding on her back and aiming for the second one's eye with arms and weapons stretched forward. Shards of metal from the explosion cut into her face and arms, the floor rasped along her back as her tanks bunched high, exposing her skin.

The weapons' recoil quivered through the muscles of her arm, she felt the punch of it lodging in her chest. It felt satisfying, almost good, to release some of the anger, some of the pain.

She was still firing off rounds, sparks flying when she felt Dee's arm hauling her up and forward.

"That's good enough, Captain. Hurry."

A stray round ricocheted off the bulkhead and sliced into the muscle of her upper arm. Sightless or not, that damn toaster was still capable of inflicting some serious damage.

Kara hissed and swore fiercely, but in truth the pain barely registered.

Dee glanced at the wound as they turned another corner, passed more dead bodies, more people they each had served with for so long.

Kara tripped over one of them, stumbled forward and turned back to see. A mistake.

"You okay, Starbuck?"

Kara ignored her, bent at the waist and breathed in ragged tears. Weapons fell to the floor. She wrapped her arms around her middle, held it all in. The renewed horror ravaged her insides. She was gutted.

_Helo. Oh, gods. Not him, too._

Who would be left to care about? To care about her in return?

Dee laid a trembling hand on her shoulder, voice choked and huskier than ever, "We're almost there, Captain."

"What's the point?" Kara managed, palms on her knees, bent to the cold, hard floor.

Dee shook her head, "I don't know. I really don't know."

Kara looked up at the other woman. There were tears streaming down Dee's still face, and she didn't even know the worst.

Kara nodded and wiped at her mouth with the back of her trembling hand, picked up her weapons.

"Okay."

They truly were almost there, it was only a matter of moments before they stopped running and pulled up in front of the hatch. A marine spun the wheel for them and they entered, Kara leading the way. Bright consoles and bleeping computers surrounded her. Crew members were speaking rapidly into headsets. There was an air of the inevitable, of the end, about the room.

The Admiral looked up from where he stood next to a preternaturally calm Laura Roslin. Saul Tigh stood a little off, mostly ignored but not forgotten. Restored but not forgiven.

He met Kara's gaze with a nod-like an encouragement.

She turned to the Admiral, saw the look on his face. He was broken, a man undone. The ugly thought came to her, unbidden, that it had to come to this for him to hand her the reins. To trust her.

Was it even trust if you had to be brought this low to invest it?

_And he doesn't know… he doesn't know the worst of everything..._

She felt her expression crumple, had to turn away.

Kara wouldn't tell him now even if there was time. She never wanted to tell anyone.

Adama took a deep breath that lifted his chest and turned to look in the direction of the FTL station, then back to her, trust and hope amidst the devastation in his gaze. He was putting his faith in her. Rolling the hard six.

It was too late. Too frakking late. She wanted to charge him, grab him by the shoulders. Shake him and make him see. Stubborn. Too stubborn.

She understood that trait, more than anyone. But in that moment, she hated him for it.

Kara marched over to the FTL, slamming her weapons down on top of the station and piercing Lt. Gaeta with a hard stare.

"I need you to transmit a new set of emergency jump coordinates to the rest of the Fleet."

His eyes narrowed but he nodded under the Admiral's watch. Kara braced against the console, allowed it to bear her weight for a moment. She was exhausted, faint. Her eyelids felt heavy.

Blood from her wound continued to trickle down her arm, slid over the inside of her arm, dropped from her wrist…

_A splash of crimson, rippling out in a circle. Like candle wax before the Memorial Wall. Like flying through the storm, a__ swirling mass of angry colors: clouds shaped in the form of a childhood painting__._

…_But you and I, we've been through that…_

_Like breaking into pieces of shredded metal and dying fire before the one who loves you most._

…_And this is not our fate…_

_There was a man in a bar who played. Like a father before he left without saying goodbye to his daughter. His words echoing in her thoughts, coming from a childhood memory she'd forgotten was there._

"_Play the one I taught you, Kara. Do you remember?"_ _She did._

…_There must be some kind of way out of here…_

_Hera lifted up the paper, circles on a page. Notes on a graph. Keys on a board. Equations of time, distance, length, speed, and weight. It seemed so simple now. So maddeningly clear. Play the song, plot the course._

…_No reason to get excited…_

"_Keep your fingers relaxed, Kara, and they will anticipate where the next note is going to be." _

Kara reached a trembling hand to the console. Her fingertips fell on the keys, lightly, gently. In time to music only she could hear.

One…one...two…three…six…five…three…six…five…three…two…one…two…one…four…eight…

Three.

She hit the last key, and opened her eyes. The Admiral was watching her with a grim, almost desperate expression. He met her gaze with a nod-like an apology.

"Transmit, " she snapped.

The hatch flew open with inhuman force, it crashed against the wall, torn from its hinges. Three Centurions entered with weapons drawn and armor gleaming beneath the splatters of her shipmates' blood. Kara's breathing came hot and fast, rushing in her brain, roaring in her ears.

She fell into a crouch, her hand slipped along the console above, searching for her weapons. She found the grips, held them tight and leveraged herself back up on the console by her elbows. Leaning over it to release a barrage of gunfire into the chaos, aimed at anything that reflected the light. Nearby, Geata did his best to coordinate the fleet amidst the confusion.

She could just see Dee and some of the other CIC officers out of the corner of her eyes diving for cover. There was rapid gunfire, crunching metal and shouts, a woman's scream, a man's command. Consoles sizzled and spit. There were war cries and cries of pain.

A different kind of warfare sounded as additional marines stormed the hatch, armed to the teeth. The boom and crack of explosions filled the air. The weapons lockers must be nigh to wiped clean by this point. How many more Centurions could they take on?

Gaeta glanced over at her from where he knelt nearby.

"Galactica is finished spooling up. The coordinates you gave us have been transmitted to the rest of the fleet. They're standing by."

Kara stood slowly. One by one, the centurions had become nothing but grotesque, twisted heaps of metal emitting staccato, dying gunfire.

She watched as the last of them died in pieces, torso here, limbs there. The red dot sputtered and faded. There was a momentary silence. The kind you were afraid to trust.

Her glance fell to the floor. Laura Roslin was laid next to the bloodied, bullet ridden body of William Adama. Tigh's broken body lay on its front only feet away from them, his arm over the Admiral's chest as if he'd been trying to shield him. Sparks still flew from consoles. Men and woman she'd served with for years began to mourn in anger and disbelief.

Kara was blinded, immune. She had finally shorted out. It was too much.

Only duty remained.

"Mister Geata- Start the clock."

He falteringly did so, rattled in the face of so much loss and her unearthly calm.

Kara slid the key, glowing bright and blue and deceptively hopeful into the slot, staring straight ahead. The blood smearing her palm made her grip slippery, she adjusted her grip. Emotionless.

Stubborn.

"On my mark."

5 ...

4 ...

3 ...

2 ...

1 ... 

She turned the key and shouted.

"MARK!"

_Spins and turns, angles and curves._

The world folded over, pulling them in and turning them inside out.

_Intruders swarm like flame, like the whirlwind; Hopes soaring to slaughter all their best against our hulls._

Kara saw in her mind's eye the battle outside the ship's walls as if she were out in the midst of it. As if distant stars flew by so fast they were like streams of light, the sky was littered with debris, filled with the sounds of war and death.

_The children of the one reborn shall find their own country._

Colors and sounds and memories of love and loss.

_You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You will lead them all to their end. _

Clocks spinning and space collapsing. Time renewed and second chances.

_Find the perfect world for the end of Kara Thrace. End of line._

Time stopped rushing past and slowed to the present. Kara caught her gasping breath and looked around. It was so quiet. Too quiet.

"The Fleet is checking in…" Dee began, from her post at the communications center, the first to break the silence. She finished hesitantly, "The Pyxis only. So far all the rest are unaccounted for…"

Kara's brows drew together, her muscles quivered in fatigue. Wrung out.

"A few more are checking in…Colonial One, the Zephyr, the Astral Queen…" Dee turned slowly to look at her, "Captain…they're reporting…numerous disappearances…fleet wide."

"What does that mean, Lieutenant?" Kara returned as clearly as she could around her raw throat.

But Dee wasn't paying attention, she had just looked up and was staring at the center of the CIC.

"They're gone," she whispered.

Kara scowled, uncomprehending. She swung back to Gaeta.

"Any sign of the cylons?" she bit out.

Another moment passed, Dee stood slowly and came up to stand nearby.

"No, sir. Dradis is clear…However, it would seem we _are_ hovering above a fully inhabitable planet, Captain," there was a slightly frantic, hopeful edge to Gaeta's voice now.

Dee finally spoke, "Starbuck…" Her voice shook, "They. Are. _Gone_."

Kara finally looked around. Dee. Gaeta. Herself. A handful of the CIC crew.

That was all.

The centurions weren't there lying on the CIC floor like so much discarded metal, and yet, there was blood and the smell of death. And their bodies-the Admiral, Tigh, some of the marines, some of the fallen crew. And Laura Roslin. Gone.

Kara slowly came down and stood next to command and control, spun around.

She held a hand to her aching head, there was the still the insistent sound of the hybrid's rambling humming in her subconscious.

_You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You will lead them all to their end. _

"Mister Gaeta, is there…is there life down on the planet?"

A moment of silence, "There's really no way to tell, sir. We'd have to send down a recon team…"

Kara shook her head slowly.

"No," she turned to Dee and the others, "We all go down together."

No one seemed to question her authority, though their eyes question her sanity.

"What… is going on here, Starbuck?"

Kara felt a hot rush of emotion behind her eyes, it felt like pain but was most likely hope.

"I don't know."

Dee and the others were watching her, scrutinizing her. She didn't care.

Maybe…Maybe she'd come back for the ones she'd left behind…All the children she'd lost after being reborn…

She thought of the moment of her last return. Of returning to her viper and that fateful flight. Of pulling up in time before her humanity was lost forever.

…Maybe she was one of the children.

Perhaps this was the final journey, the last destiny fulfilled. To gather the dead and bring them home. All the lives that had been needlessly lost.

Kara knew all about meaningless death.

She looked around. Her audience looked deeply skeptical, concerned. She honestly didn't give a frak.

Kara bent and began gathering weapons, there might still be Centurions aboard. She looked over at the small dark-haired woman who had died the first time because of no hope.

"We need to gather everyone up. We're all going down to that planet," Kara barked, snapping them all out of their shock in the only way she knew how. Some of the remaining crew members began to stir.

She marched towards the open hatch, weapons heavy at the end of her arms. A Damage Control officer grabbed her arm with a vice-like grip as she passed by.

"And what about everyone who disappeared, Captain Thrace? What happened to them?"

"I said I don't know," Kara snapped and pulled free. She stepped through the hatch, the door hung loose on one hinge, rocking ever so gently.

Kara gripped the handle of the right-hand armored door over the observation deck window. She gave a sharp pull, grunting, arms and muscles trembling with the struggle to lift it. It hardly budged. She studied the place where the two doors met.

The left and right side doors interlocked, it was almost as if you had to open them simultaneously.

Kara tried again to no avail, she threw a disgusted look over her shoulder. Several people had gathered behind her in one massive, disorganized line that snaked right out of the observation deck and ran down Galactica's corridor. No one immediately stepped forward to help. She didn't see anyone she knew all that well but still, didn't they want off this frakking ship? Was everyone too dazed and confused to understand that this was it? End of Line. Earth.

Kara narrowed her eyes, prepared to intimidate someone into helping her. There was a groan and a screech of metal; the handle jumped beneath her hand.

She looked across the sealed window's expanse to the Eight who was giving the left-hand door a sharp tug with a set, expressionless face. No uniform. Not Athena. Boomer.

She looked around her, several crew members were throwing the cylon model distrustful glances. Kara glared at a few of them and turned back to the other woman. Help was help.

"On three?"

Boomer nodded.

"One," Kara adjusted her grip.

"Two," Boomer placed her boot up against the side wall.

"Three."

Kara threw her weight back, pulling with all her strength. Boomer did the same. The heavy, armored doors fell open, revealing broken glass and a rainy planet vista.

Kara kicked at the jagged shards of glass that remained in the frame, the few pieces that had survived the battle.

Several of her audience stepped in now as if they'd come awake at the sight of all that green grass and gray sky. They helped her clear the way, kicking out glass, wrapping their hands in cloth to pull pieces free.

When the way was clear, Kara walked through the opening they'd made; away from Galactica, out into the rain.


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Lee made his way back through the camp to his tent, dodging children and circling campfires. He glanced up at the stormy sky. Those fires would be banked soon, it looked like rain.

He'd have to put out the buckets when he got back. Collecting rainwater was probably the only chore for the survivors that didn't require any work, and very little preparation. Lee had come to like the rain.

Sometimes he would lie in his tent and stare up at nothing, listening to its steady patter. Sometimes he thought of her.

_What do you hear, Starbuck? _

_Nothing but the rain._

He hoped she was happy, wherever she was. And she was somewhere. He flatly refused to believe she was just _gone_. On some distant plain perhaps, the afterlife, somewhere beyond mortal beings. But she was there. He simply couldn't wrap his mind around the possibility that Kara Thrace, a force of nature since the day he met her, had somehow just disappeared into the ether, never to be seen or heard from again.

There were nights when the thought comforted him. There were nights when nothing could. When the only thing he could do was lie awake and think of all the missed opportunities, and all the wasted time. Of how there could never be another Kara Thrace for him. She was that indefinable something he'd been searching for until the day he met her. After, she was the one thing he'd always wanted but could never have. Always just out of reach. Elusive, maddening, captivating. She'd made it impossible for him to ever let go because she'd spent their entire relationship forcing him to hold on. She'd _always _been the unattainable. So now that she was truly gone it felt as if he had simply fallen into all the old patterns. Mourning, hating, loving, aching for, and missing her by turns.

Lee felt a drop of moisture hit the bridge of his nose, then another. He should pick up the pace. Trouble was, even after two months, his leg still gave a twinge whenever he asked too much of it. The gash itself had healed nicely, though the skin still felt stretched a little too tight. It was the bone underneath, where you couldn't see, that had suffered the deep bruising. That was the source of his pain.

He slipped his hand into his side pocket and absently fingered the tiny golden statue he kept hidden there.

He could see his tent up ahead now. Romo would be waiting for him, he'd become a sounding board of sorts for the new president. They'd agreed to go over some policies together today. Lampkin was fond of saying that while the paperwork of building a societal government was in endless supply, the same could not be said of the paper itself.

Lee began a mental rundown of all the things he'd meant to propose today. A renegade thought slipped in of how much his dad would hate to be present at what had become his and Romo's regular informal meetings. The thought of his father's absolute distaste for the whole ordeal brought a small smile to Lee's lips. It was nice to smile, even if it was only in a cynical way. Lee really didn't have too much to smile about these days.

Lampkin was waiting for him at the tent's entrance. He greeted the bespectacled man with a nod and gestured for him to proceed him into the tent.

He followed behind, shoving all thoughts of the loved ones he'd lost aside. There would be time enough to mourn for them when evening fell.

Kara walked away from the shadow of Galactica, the wet grass slick beneath her boots. The rain slid over her face and arms, washing away the blood and sweat, plastering her tanks and fatigues to her skin.

The others followed close behind, then slowly began to close in on her sides and spread out until she was lost in the masses. Hundreds of them. Some she'd never met. Some she'd never heard of. Some she loved. All the people who had never stepped foot on this planet.

Their two remaining raptors had spotted life on the planet as the ships drew closer. Small pockets of civilization. One rather large one. After the news of that had spread, the general spirit of the survivors had grown a little lighter.

Now as they saw the proof if it with their own eyes, excitement was replacing confusion and fear.

They'd laid all ships down a little less than a mile outside of the sprawling camp. Kara looked out into the distance at the people departing the other ships. Several small queues slowly merging into one mass caravan.

Kara couldn't stop herself from turning about; lost in a sea of faces. Some faces belonged to those who'd died at the first Battle of the Nebula. Some belonged to those who'd died in the Mutiny. All belonged to those throughout the Fleet who'd died for no reason at all.

She turned to look back at where she'd last seen Sam, several yards behind. He'd been waiting for that. He smiled a ready smile at her over the swarm of heads.

She caught sight of Dee out of the corner of her eye, turning in circles hands open to the watery sky. Boomer walked past purposefully, left alone. The crowd was making a small berth around her but she didn't look as if she cared. She was looking around as if things were completely frakked up in the best possible way. She might even have been crying a little. The rain made it hard to tell.

Racetrack let out a whoop, already some yards ahead in the crowd. Cally was walking along nearby her, empty arms wrapped around herself, staring ahead at the camp and looking torn between distress and hope.

Kara blinked the moisture from her eyes and dragged in a lungful of sweet oxygen through her mouth. The familiar smell of Galactica was gone, replaced with the scents of sweet grass and nitrogen in the air. She knew this place.

_The shape of it, the smell of it, the feel of it on her skin; in her pores._

Kara stopped walking when she reached the crest of the hillside; people continued to flow around her. She stood very still, soaking it all in. The rain washed over her, whispering promises she was afraid to believe in.

She dropped her head and looked at the ground, crossing her arms. The rain made ropes out of the strands of her hair, they fell over her face obstructing her view. She took several deep breaths, allowed herself time to process, to think. At length she crouched down, arms draping over her knees. She mentally braced herself then slowly raised her eyes to look in the direction where the camp should be. People walked by, blocking her view from time to time but she didn't care.

It was there. Spreading from about a mile away from where she was, all the way to the horizon. Green hills and lush trees, rivers and rocks, mountains off in the distance. And in the midst of it all, familiar metal shapes in the form of grounded ships. Hundreds of small canvas tents. And-gods willing-thousands of people, people she'd never met, people she'd die for.

Someone laid a gentle hand on her shoulder for a moment as they walked by. Sam.

Kara buried her face in her hands for a moment, then abruptly scrubbed her face and stood.

The sudden motion caused the chains around her neck to swing back thumping against her collarbone. She glanced down. Two sets of dog tags.

With trembling hands, she reached up to grasp them. The first set lay in her hand untarnished. They had never been incinerated in a fiery crash. Never been torn from her charred corpse. They had always hung around her neck. Kara Thrace.

Her eyes slid shut. There was gratitude amidst the pain.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and examined the second pair of tags. She fingered them carefully. There were still flecks of blood. The name on them was not her own.

She carefully tucked them between her tanks and began to walk towards the horizon like the others. Towards the man whose name she wore?

_Please gods._

Kara skidded on the grass a little, caught her balance. The uneven terrain and terrible weather were working against her. She wasn't alone.

She recognized a member of the Quorum, Jacob Cantrell, dropping down on the wet grass to her far left to take off his shoes altogether as the sloshing of the leather dragged him down.

Most of the crowd was ahead of her at this point, though she could hear the distant sounds of the people bringing up the rear behind her. Kara estimated them to be about a thousand strong.

Kara sidestepped down a particularly steep downward slope; it afforded her a better view of the settlement. She could see people beginning to leave the camp to investigate. Only a few stragglers at first braved the weather, then slowly more until the number of people coming to greet them rivaled their own.

The heavy thunder might have masked the sound of their ships entering the atmosphere, but they had been spotted now.

She rubbed her hands together, breathed on them, folded her arms and tucked them in. Her right bicep ached where her wound stretched tight. The air was already cool, but combined with the constant rain, she was beginning to shiver. Bruises she hadn't felt before made their presence known. Everything hurt.

She knew she was either getting close to the camp or the people from the camp were getting close to her as the faint sounds began to drift by of people shouting, laughing, talking. Recognizing, reuniting. Living.

Kara didn't know if she should feel joy or heartache so she tried to feel neither. She was grateful to be here, but what felt like only moments ago she had seen the people she loved and cared about slip away from her one by one. A sense of loss persistently clung to any contentment.

Nearby, a man cried out and rushed forward to embrace a middle-aged woman in a rust colored coat who had been walking beside her for the last few minutes. The couple began to sob.

Kara looked away, feeling as if she were intruding on a private moment. More and more settlers began walking towards Kara and the others, until finally, the amount of people moving out of the camp and into it found a stalemate and forward motion stopped altogether.

Men and women and children began hugging and shouting, calling out names, searching for loved ones. Questions were asked, concerns raised. One couldn't hear themselves think amidst the turmoil. Tears of joy fell to rival the rain. Beautiful chaos.

Kara had yet to see any of the people important to her, though she recognized some shipmates in passing. Most of them did a double take. One called out her call sign. She wasn't sure if she managed a smile in return or not. All she could think was that if they were here, than he must be, too. She started pushing back, scanning the crowd, hopping up from time to time to see then falling back into the swarm; lost.

Her body was losing heat fast and fear and uncertainty were moving in to take its place. She walked a little faster, turned to the side, wove through the crowd. She remembered where the tent had stood. She'd left…a lot of things there.

A young blonde man jostled her shoulder as he shoved past, spinning her around.

It was then that she saw him.

Average height, brown hair, lean. He still wore those ridiculous spectacles, she saw. She looked down, a white and black dog stood at his feet. She must look like a drowned latrine rat, from the look on his face. She frowned and swiped the damp strands of hair clinging to her face out of her eyes with an impatient, unsteady hand.

She had just taken a step forward when she saw him turn to someone behind him, speaking over his shoulder.

What felt like a very long moment passed. She stopped in her tracks and waited though she wasn't sure what for. Water sloshed under the heels of her boots as she shifted. She took a shaky breath. Someone else behind her called her name. Kara barely heard. People crossed past her line of vision, oblivious.

It seemed a lifetime had passed before another man came from behind Romo to stand at his side. Average height, brown hair, lean. He still wore the weight of the world on his shoulders, she saw.

She took in the sight of him, alive and whole. So damn perfect. There was a sudden hitch in her breathing, a hot ache in the center of her chest spreading outwards. A curious mixture of regret and gratitude cramped her stomach and crowded the air from her lungs.

He froze at the sight of her, their eyes connecting. Disbelief and shock played across his clear features, followed swiftly by a broken expression as if she'd wounded him somehow.

Kara clenched her fists at her side; cold.

Sheets of rain fell between them, swarms of people shifted past; and still she stared at his face. It was hard to just accept it. For him. For her. His chest rose and fell sharply, he finally looked away, releasing her, breathing raggedly.

She wanted to touch him, feel that he was warm, that his heart still beat. A part of her felt guilty for it, as if she betrayed his memory with himself. She had left his mangled, bloodied corpse on the hangar deck floor. She had drawn from his strength to complete this journey not once, but twice now. The second time had killed him.

She shivered violently now.

And yet, this man, standing alive before her…it was still him.

And she suddenly found that she didn't much care if he hadn't been a part of this final journey. Just as she had not cared that the Lee she had lost hadn't been a part of her first. All that seemed to matter was that he was here, and so was she. He still needed to be with her, she still needed to be with him. That was all.

His gaze finally slid back to her, but his head was turned slightly away, as if he were afraid to look directly at her.

"_Kara?"_

She couldn't even hear him, only saw his mouth form the word. It was all she needed. She put one foot in front of the other, filtered through the masses. She could see Romo Lampkin drifting away into the crowd. Simply accepting the unexpected and leaving them to it.

Lee began weaving his way towards her too, slowly, carefully. Eyes finding hers again and again each time someone walked between them.

They met and stopped inches away from each other. She could feel his body's heat. See the blue of his eyes. The clamor of the surrounding horde seemed to fade to a steady murmur, as if the world had tunneled to just where they stood. To just the patter of the rain on the ground and their unsteady breathing.

She couldn't speak, couldn't look away.

"I can't…You're not-" Lee forced the words from an aching throat. They came through rough with pain.

Kara stopped him with a sharp little shake of her head. Her hands fell on his shoulders, the sides of his throat. She bit down on her lip and reigned it all in.

Warmth, life. Lee. Somehow both familiar and exciting in that way only he ever was to her.

His expression tightened a little at her touch but he didn't pull away. She reached up and slid the back of her fingers over his cheekbone, across his jaw. His pulse beat fast beneath her other hand. She pressed into it, felt it thrum against her palm.

She shifted, daring to move even closer to him, like a dance. She tried to grin but smiled a heartbroken smile instead. He exhaled sharply, she felt it against her cold skin. In his eyes, the desperate need to believe. Tears and rain slid down her face.

She gave in first, wrapping her arms around his shoulders; pressing against him and drinking him in. The groove in her arm, washed clean by the rain, throbbed and she didn't feel it. Her face crumbled and she closed her eyes.

He leaned in heavily for a moment, almost forcing her to hold him up. She did. Then with a noiseless sob she could feel in her own chest, he let go and wrapped her in his arms; like steel bands around her. Her shirts bunched up past her waist as his warm hands splayed across the cold skin of her back. Another quiet sob wracked his chest as he pulled her even closer. Her ribs ached.

She thought vaguely of the soothing words she'd spoken to him on the hangar deck so long ago. The first time she'd returned from the dead. _"I know. I know. Me too."_

She didn't even have to speak them aloud this time. It was in the air all around them. She held the back of his damp head with her hand, laid her face in the curve of his shoulder.

It would never be enough.

They stood that way for the longest time, people and rain and minutes rushing past.

"_Starbuck_?"

Kara stiffened, feeling exposed. There was an intimacy in the way Lee held her, in the way she held him back, that inspired vulnerability. But only between the two of them. The outside interruption too easily turned the vulnerability to embarrassment.

Their arms slid away from each other, Kara turned to see Saul Tigh standing beside them. Ellen was clasping his arm to her side with one hand, and holding an umbrella in the other.

"I don't believe it," Tigh reached out a hand and clasped her shoulder, shaking her a little. She clenched her jaw, her teeth beginning to chatter. Tigh's glance slid to Lee and they exchanged a look she didn't understand.

She looked at the former XO and his wife and mustered a smile, "Believe it."

"You realize there are several of us whom we thought to be deceased walking about all of a sudden, Captain?" Rather than disbelief, Ellen's voice held a great deal of delighted amusement.

"Surprise," Kara returned in a flat tone. She was fresh out of smart remarks and sarcasm. She was cold and exhausted and confused as hell. All she wanted was to grab Lee's hand, go back to that tent and sleep for the next three days with her hand over his heart. After that she would worry about facing down the next frakking thing life threw at her.

The Tighs' attention was already diverted, however. Kara threw a questioning glance over her shoulder. Sam had spotted them and was jogging in their direction.

"Sam, you worthless bastard. I don't believe it," Tigh chuckled and embraced his fellow cylon while Ellen stood by and awaited her turn. "I thought we'd heard the last of you when flew yourself into the frakking sun."

Sam looked at the older man like _he_ was the one who had gone brain dead, "Into the sun? What the frak are you talking about?"

Kara didn't hear the explanation because Lee stepped away suddenly to allow her to be engulfed in a bear hug by Karl Agathon.

"Kara, this is…" he pulled away and held her head in his hands, "…this is amazing. What happened? We all thought you were gone for good. And what's with all the folks back from the dead?" He laughed incredulously, infectiously.

The side of Kara's mouth pulled up, she rolled her eyes and shrugged. Did that count as an answer? Because that was all she was up to right now.

Helo just smiled and shook his head ignoring her non-response, "Hey, I'm not complaining."

Athena came around his side, smirking. She good-naturedly repeated her words from so long ago, "Starbuck. Late to the party as usual."

Kara felt the beginnings of a hysterical laugh bubbling up. She was surprised when the other woman stepped forward and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

It felt good.

She could see where Lee stood over Athena's shoulder. He was staring down at the wet earth. Feeling her eyes on him, he raised his head, his solemn gaze returning to her face. He smiled just the tiniest bit. Rueful and disbelieving and a frakked up kind of wonderful. Kara returned it.

It felt better.

She closed her eyes.

Athena's hug wouldn't be the last to surprise Kara in the coming hours. She lost count of how many well-wishes, long hugs, salutes, and "What the frak's?" she received.

She lost track of Lee after turning away at the sight of him and Dee embracing. She wasn't jealous per se, it just wasn't something she wanted or needed to see. After everything they… _she_ had been through with… him… it just seemed _wrong_. Out of place.

The crowd closed in on her, carrying her along with it. It flowed back in the direction of the sprawling camp. Kara eventually found herself in a large tent with Romo Lampkin and several others who were asking questions and demanding answers. Somehow she had become the person to demand them of, which made sense, really, but she was in no mood for any of it.

Where the frak had they come from-weren't they all supposed to be dead? Were there any enemy cylons who had followed them here? Where were they going to put up all these new people on such short notice? Could they make use of the extra ships?

She stood before them all and gave answers that were as short and clipped as possible. Telling the truth when she could and avoiding it with blunt misdirection when she couldn't. Exhausted; alternating between the desire to roll her eyes at some of their nit-picking concerns and telling a few of them to frak off at their continued skepticism.

Hours passed and Kara folded her arms and looked behind her to the tent opening. It sounded rather like a celebration out there. And though she would certainly rather be a part of it than this forum's excruciating inquiry, she found what she really wanted was a shower, some food, and some sleep.

She looked down at the ground for a moment, stretched her jaw. When she looked up again she spoke up right in the middle of another question a woman on some new council was posing.

"Sorry, ladies and gentlemen," she put both hands up, palms outward and walked back indolently towards the tent's opening. She smiled insincerely and nodded, "That's about all I can take of this for now."

She turned around abruptly, threw back the tent flap and walked out into the darkening sky and continual rain; left them all to stare after her.


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Kara took her sidearm at the ready and hiked back to Galactica, snuck onto what was left of her and used the last of the hot water to take the longest shower of her life. It was a long way to go to get warm and clean but it felt worth it. She even thought she might have dozed off for a little while as the steaming water sluiced over her skin, calming her nerves and washing away the last of the cold and the battle.

She collected some clean clothes from her locker, left the rest. In the end she walked off Galactica with only the clothes on her back and the dog tags around her neck.

When she reached the tent it was dark inside, nobody home. She entered and stumbled around a bit until she found a lantern to light. The tent lit with a warm amber glow and she looked around. There was a cot, some odds and ends, a stack of books, some upturned buckets as if for seating. Not much.

Her stuff was all there, literally just where she'd left it. Undisturbed. He would have seen it everyday, a constant reminder. Not forgotten. She felt the unexplainable urge to weep.

She knelt down before her bags, sifting through her things. Her clothes were wet again from the walk from Galactica, undoing all the warmth she'd walked so far to enjoy to begin with.

She muttered to herself about her own stupidity and the frakking rain while she stripped down completely and donned another shirt and pants, zipped up her sweatshirt over the top of it. She left her wet clothes and boots in a pile on the bottom of one of the buckets and pulled on some more socks and shoes since the ground felt a little damp and cool despite the shelter.

She threw a look over her shoulder as she did so. There was some fruit laid out on a rough-hewn table that looked as if Lee might actually have tried his hand at furniture making. Her lips pulled into a completely amused smile just thinking about it. She helped herself to some sort of mango and sat down on the cot to wait without realizing it.

She didn't have to wait very long. There was the slosh of footsteps and the rustle of canvas before Lee's head and shoulders appeared. He ducked inside and pulled to a stop at the sight of her.

She took another bite out of her fruit, struggling for normalcy.

"_Kara._"

He seemed surprised to find her there. The light was on, who had he expected?

"Hi, Lee," she frowned playfully, "Remember me?"

His posture thawed a little at her teasing, he shook his head, exasperated and frowning a little as if it were the most ridiculous of questions. He walked a little further into the tent rubbing at his damp hair.

"I just…didn't know where you'd-"

"Where were you during the inquisition?" Kara cut him off, not ready yet to talk about the heavy stuff.

His eyebrow lifted but he went along with the change of subject, "Did Lampkin and the others give you a hard time?" He was making a growing puddle on the ground where he stood. He didn't seem to notice.

Kara shrugged. It had been nothing, really. There was very little she couldn't endure at this point.

He answered her original question, "He had me taking stock of every part of those ships that we can strip and put to use immediately. Survival is a demanding mistress these days," he stuck his hands in his wet pockets, a rather nervous gesture.

"He especially wanted me to look at Galactica since I'm most familiar with her…you know, the old bucket looks just as bad as she did the last time if not worse, " he smiled a tiny bit, "What did you do to her?"

"Took her for a hell of a joy ride," she deadpanned, taking another bite. She leaned back on her free hand and tilted her head to watch him.

He turned to look behind him, towards the tent's opening, "It's turning into a celebration out there."

She nodded a little, "I can hear that."

When he looked back at her it was with one of those searching looks she had a hard time not responding to, "And yet here you are…"

She shrugged again, feeling unsure. She'd lost her footing; wasn't sure she knew how to talk to this Lee now.

She glanced around the tent, searching for something else to stall with.

"So. I really like what you've done with the place, Lee."

He pulled a face, following her gaze, "Yeah, what do you like most? The dirt floor or the new kitchen I just put in?"

She snorted, turning to him, "Kitchen?"

He nodded in the direction of an upturned bucket with a paring knife laid over the top. She reached up a hand to push at the strands of her hair. She'd pulled it back, but renegade wisps had escaped in rebellion.

She pretended to consider his question. "In that case, I think I'm going to have to go with option c: the dining room table. Very rustic, Lee," she frowned, overly serious, "Some of your best work."

Lee raised a cynical brow, self de-appreciating humor written all over him, "The saddest part, Kara, is that that was my third try."

She ducked her head and smiled to herself.

She ate another bite, "You've become some sort of mountain man recluse, Lee. Should I be worried I'll be kicked out for your pet Grizzly?"

He stilled for a moment at her words, then smirked, crossing his arms, "No, I don't think so. You smell a little better."

Kara gave him a withering look, "Gee, thanks."

They shared a companionable silence for a moment while she finished her fruit.

Lee broke the silence first, glancing to the side of the tent, "I kept all your things."

Kara took a deep breath, feeling the shift in mood, "I saw that…" The words came out sounding hopeful, even needy, to Kara. Lee didn't seem to notice.

He looked back at her, pinning her with his intensity, "Where have you been, Kara?"

She swallowed, felt like fidgeting, "Oh, you know. Fulfilling the last of my destiny, I suppose." She hadn't mean to be flippant but her nerves got the best of her.

Lee ignored the flippancy, focused on her words instead, "And how do you know it's the last of it, Kara?" The words came sad, a desperate, weary edge to them.

Kara wasn't sure but she did.

"I know."

Lee shook his head, turned to look away, pressing his lips together for a moment. He ran a hand over the back of his neck.

"So…you brought the last of us home."

She nodded, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. She blinked rapidly.

"You brought yourself home, too," his eyes fell on her, roving over every line and curve. It felt like love.

She nodded again but this time a lone tear got the best of her. She swiped at it impatiently.

He took a step towards her. She waited.

"Sam is alive; Dee…"

It was a question.

"And yet… here we are," Kara turned his earlier words back around on him; her eyes pleaded and there was nothing she could do to stop herself.

His expression tightened a bit, crumpling, "You were gone, Kara…"

"I know." Softly.

"I can't keep going through this…"

"I know." Softer.

Kara stood slowly, crossing to where he stood. He watched her, thoroughly engrossed in her. In the heavy silence, the white noise of the rain hitting the canvas closed them in, sealing them off from the rest of the world.

She came to a stop inches from him, shifting on her feet and facing him down. Their eyes locked and the sound of their breathing came loudly as they stood that way for several minutes, trembling.

"Stay," Lee finally whispered brokenly.

Where else would she go?

Kara kept her eyes on his as she raised her hands and fumbled with the buttons of his jacket. His breathing came faster but if anything he looked more uncertain than ever. He just stared at her with that look of a man lost in a dream, waiting to awaken. Afraid that it wasn't real.

Kara slowly pealed away the heavy, wet fabric, her fingertips gliding over the smooth heat of his skin beneath. _He_ was real, and at the moment, that was all that mattered to her.

She raised hazel eyes to his from time to time. He was still watching her intently.

His jacket hit the ground with a damp slap that neither of them noticed. Too focused on one another.

She unzipped her sweatshirt and tackled her shirt next, her fingers trembling as she grabbed the hem. He finally made a move, helped her pull up and out of it. His warm fingers barely brushed her skin as if he were afraid to touch her and find she wasn't even there.

She took the shirt from him and tossed the wad of it aside with a careless motion.

She needed him to know. This was _her_. Kara. And she was so in love with him it would blow his frakkin' mind if he knew.

Determined now, Kara grabbed him by the sides and pulled him closer, yanking his tank out of the waistband of his pants. She quickly repeated the action with her own tank and glanced up again.

Something more flickered in his eyes now. Whatever it was, the heat of it threatened to burn her.

"Kara?" Hesitant, hopeful. His hands came up to cradle her face.

She reached out and grabbed his waist, pulling him forward while walking backwards. When the back of her knees hit the cot, she sank gratefully onto it, his hands fell away. He stood looking down at her for a second then slowly lowered himself right beside her. His thigh pressed all along hers, as they sat side by side.

Kara leaned down to remove her boots and toss them aside impatiently. She turned to look up at him, he was still watching her silently, but his eyes were slowly losing that lost look. His body swayed towards her.

The feel of his fingertips brushing away strands of hair at the back of her neck startled her. She held still as he pressed his warm, open mouth to her exposed nape. She shivered, but this time not from the cold. It was not so much a kiss as a connection, a need to be touching her.

With renewed determination, she wrestled with his boots next and then stripped out of her pants and down to her underwear. She leaned back on an elbow, pulling her legs up over the side and watching him. _Please._

Lee stripped down as well and then turned to slowly reach out a hand, wrapping it around her ankle as he crawled up the length of her body. His palm felt hot against her chilled skin. His hand fell on the side of her knee, her hip, her waist. Finally it fell on her face to frame her jaw. He broke the silence, whispering raggedly.

"_Kara."_

She stared at the beauty of his familiar face and wanted to tell him. Tell him how she felt, what had happened. What he meant to her. She couldn't find the words. She was terrible with words.

She reached up and grabbed him by the back of his neck, lifted her head and closed her eyes.

Her lips brushed against his, catching just a little from time to time. She nipped at his lower lip until he opened his mouth over her own. Their breath mingled while their mouths hovered, then she turned her head to seal his mouth with hers.

He returned the kiss deeply, moved away, came in again fiercer than ever. Her head fell back to the bed with the strength of his kiss; she in turn grew more forceful, pushing him away with the force of hers. Their mouths slid over each other with increasing intensity, breath coming sharply through their noses. His hands found hers, pulled them up and clasped them on either side of her head. She felt like crying. She couldn't get close enough.

Kara suddenly tasted the salty tang of her tears and pulled away, biting her lip, feeling angry with herself; unsure, vulnerable. She opened her eyes and was surprised to see his own eyes glistening.

She shut them again, felt the tears slip free from beneath her lids. His head dipped to hers again, kissing them away before his mouth slid hotly on her own once more, seeking the perfect fit. It didn't take them long to find it.

She unclasped her fingers from his own, reaching out to sink them into the soft strands of his hair at the back of his head. She gave a little pull and he countered by freeing her other hand as well, reaching down to slide her tank up, hands skimming her sides. He pulled it over her head in one smooth motion and it disappeared somewhere over their heads. He began lowering his body to completely cover her own. He was heavy, anchoring her to this place and this life.

Kara felt an answering hitch in her chest; feeling so close. Perfect.

She ran her hands over the heated surface of his skin; over his shoulders then down until she could dig her fingers into his biceps and the corded muscle there.

Lee began raining kisses across her face, throat, collarbone, lower, then lower still. Taking the time to appreciate her in a way she'd hadn't allowed anyone for a very long time. A part of her wanted to return the favor until he couldn't take it anymore. But when he stripped them of the last of their clothing, the more demanding part of her couldn't wait any longer. She wrapped her legs around his waist, insistent. He dropped his head into her shoulder heavily.

After that, neither of them spoke of anything save each other's names for a very long time.

In the moment between deep sleep and awareness, Kara had the sudden fear that she would waken to find herself somewhere else, or gods' forbid-in that cockpit again. But when her eyelids fluttered open, the rain had picked up and it was darker than before. She looked down, at some point Lee had wrapped a blanket around them both. She fingered it's weave, the softness.

Kara could tell by the rhythm of his breathing that he was not asleep, she shifted and stretched, turning into him. So warm.

He was quiet a moment more, then, "You're still here." His hand came up to frame her face. Her skin felt flushed.

"So are you," she felt the corner of her full lips pull into a smile; her voice was husky with sleep and contentment.

His hand slid down, caressing until his open palm spanned over her collarbone. He stilled; she waited.

"How many times do I have to lose you?" his bleak expression made her chest hurt.

His hand fell away as she turned away and lay on her back. She was quiet for several moments, raising an arm to throw above her head and playing absently with the ends of her hair.

She understood now. What it was to lose him, how it felt. That look in his eyes right now…she understood.

She turned her head on the cot to face him, "Maybe….maybe that's not the point, Lee."

His jaw clenched, "Then what is the point, Kara?"

_Marching tiredly down a hall on the Astral Queen, returning from Caprica with an arrow strapped to her back. Turning at the entrance of an open area, seeing him standing there, waiting. A smile she hadn't even known she was capable of pulling at her lips. What were the odds of finding just this ship, in just this spot? His arms reached out to greet her, pulled her close and embraced her. _

_Now she was running down the length of her bunkroom on Galactica, wrapping her arms around his neck. Look at what she'd done, how she'd saved them all on Caprica. She'd returned to rescue all the survivors and lived to tell the tale. Miraculous. "Hi," she whispered. "Welcome back, " he whispered in return._

_Weaving in the ring, working out the demons of New Caprica. She'd found her way back to Galactica but not to her life. She felt nothing, had nothing. So she welcomed the pain. A well-thrown punch, an aching jaw. A cry for help. He gave her a reason to fight. And then his arms were around her, she pushed him away, she pulled him close. He gave her a reason to live. He held her up as they swayed in the ring, like a dance. She had found her way back._

_Stepping off the ladder out onto that hangar deck. Chief didn't have a post-flight checklist for her. Two months had passed, her ship's clock read six hours and change. She'd just flown back from a planet no one had mapped or even heard of, straight to the Nebula where the fleet awaited. Impossible. Yet here she was. They were all staring. She was alone in the middle of the crowd. Then he was there, the first person she'd seen upon her return. He'd promised not to lose her. He picked her up and wrapped her in acceptance._

_Shutting her eyes on New Earth, only to find herself in the cockpit again. Returning to the moment before death. His voice was there to greet her, to tell her to pull up. _

_Too much confusion, why was she here? What was she supposed to do now? Then he was there, holding her secure, keeping her grounded. As always. As ever. "I thought I was going to lose you." _

_But he hadn't. He never did._

"That…I always come back to you." The words flowed out of her. She wasn't afraid to say them anymore.

Something passed between them as they looked at each other in the ensuing silence, and then, slowly, she could see that a part of him understood, accepted that.

He shifted her closer, pulling her into his body again and cradling her there with his arm. She hooked a leg over one of his, placed a hand over his chest where his heart lay, just for the pleasure of feeling it beat there. His hand rested on her bare shoulder, caressing softly. His lashes brushed her cheekbone as he rested his head with hers, their hair mingling. He smelled of rainwater, coffee, antiseptic soap; he smelled like coming home.

His whisper finally broke the heavy silence, "I still…I just need to hold you."

She gratefully shut her weary eyes, "I know."

She was home.


	13. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_Some Morning After_

"Kara!"

She ran faster, threw a look over her shoulder, stumbled and picked herself back up.

"Kara, bring those back!"

She was laughing too hard to run at the same time. No air; she was winded. He caught up to her, grabbing her by the arm and spinning her about.

She threw back her head and laughed at the sight of him. All damp and pants-less and irritated as hell.

Lee snatched his pants from her weakened grasp and marched back to the creek's edge with as much dignity as a man can when he's wearing nothing but his underwear under a clear, sunny sky.

Kara crossed her arms and watched as he stepped into the pants and leaned down to pick up his shirt off the ground.

He looked up and met her smirk with a narrowed gaze, "What if someone had come along, Kara? Can't a man take a bath in peace without some smartass troublemaker coming along and stealing his pants?"

Kara made a sound somewhere between a snort and a giggle, "Apparently not."

He huffed and pulled his shirt over his head with sharp, habitual movements. He glanced at her sideways while he pulled at the collar, "How did you find me anyway?"

Kara shrugged, "The usual way- I went looking."

He rolled his eyes but she could see the beginnings of a smile and a sense of humor. She was wearing him down. She always did.

She placed her hands on her hips and looked around. There was a smattering of trees along the creek's banks, she was standing a few yards away in waist high grass. The whole scene was one of vibrant greens and browns and yellows.

"Do a lot of people bathe out here?"

He shook his head, walking towards her, ruffling his still dampened hair, "Not that I know of. Just me. Maybe a few others. I hardly ever run across any of them, though."

He stood beside her facing the opposite direction and squinted into the horizon- the settlement was about a twenty minute walk away, "There's a bigger stream to the north."

"It's nice here," she decided, walking past him towards the creek. He turned and followed close behind.

"I think so," his voice came clear in the crisp air, nothing but the sounds of the gentle breeze and murmuring creek to rival it.

On an impulse, she dropped to the ground and completely stretched out on her back.

She could see patches of the azure sky between the tree tops' leafy web. She turned her head a little to watch Lee lowering himself to sit beside her. He faced in the opposite direction as she, his eyes on her face were the exact same shade as the sky. He rested an arm over his bent knee.

"We should build a cabin," she blurted. She hadn't really thought about it, but as soon as the thought occurred to her, she knew it was what she wanted.

It was Lee's turn to snort, "Should we start before or after breakfast?"

Kara turned fully towards him, "I'm serious Lee. And I think we should make a room for your dad, too."

She had his full attention now. She saw the hope in his eyes, but she saw the questions, too. The doubt. He was still waiting for something bad to happen. For her to change her mind, to leave, to marry someone else, to die, to disappear. History had taught him to mind his heart when it came to Kara Thrace.

She would just have to prove it to him. To herself. She had nothing but time.

"It's the perfect spot-"

"Kara, I haven't seen or heard from my dad since he said good-bye to us that day," he returned quietly. He was trying to change the subject.

She nodded briskly, "That's why we're going to go find him. Together."

He shook his head a little ruefully, "It's dangerous wandering around out there, Kara. Trust me, I learned the hard way."

She reached over, pointing to his lower leg, to the scar she'd seen in passing, "Is that how you got this?"

Lee nodded, "Yeah."

She pushed up his pants leg now, examining the scar, fingering the shallow groove, "What the frak, Lee? This looks horrible."

He smiled, watching her fingers on his skin, "I guess that just blew my reputation as a mountain man out of the water."

She looked up at him and teased, "Yeah, and you had built such a solid case for it, too."

They stared at each other for a beat to long, Kara felt the familiar ache.

She reached up and grabbed the front of his t-shirt and pulled him down to her. He came easily, arms outstretched on either side of her. She raised her mouth to his, kissed him lazily.

He responded warmly, playing her mouth with his in long slow slides. She realized she could get used to this-all of this-so easily.

She pulled away, licking her lips, "So, what do you say?"

Lee stared at her mouth, spoke absently, "About the cabin? Or my father?"

"Both."

"Yes."

She scowled, "Yes to the cabin or yes to going out to look for the Old Man?"

"Both," he returned with a little grin, trying to kiss her again.

Kara rolled her eyes at him, grabbed his arms and hooked his leg with her own. She rolled them so that she was bent over him instead. The motion caused her dog tags to swing forward onto his chest between them. He grew quiet beneath her and she could sense the shift in his mood.

"Are you going to tell me about those?"

"About what?" Kara didn't know why she said it. Maybe she just wasn't ready yet.

"Those dog tags you're wearing, Kara. They have my name on them," at her questioning look he continued, "I saw them on the first night of your return-while your were asleep."

She looked down, held herself up on one arm and fingered the tags. Then she slipped them back under her shirt.

He watched her in silence for several moments, then quietly, "I know those aren't mine, Kara. Despite how they read. Mine are still in my rucksack. I checked that morning."

Kara bit her lip. She sighed and stopped holding herself up by her arms; lowering to lay a little atop him, a little beside him. She laid her head on his shoulder.

"Are you ever going to tell me what happened to you? Where you've been?" She could feel the words in her chest as he spoke.

She shrugged a little, "Someday, I will. Maybe even soon. But not today, Lee." 

He leaned forward and tilted his head so he could see her face, nodding slowly, "Okay."

She smiled gratefully at him and closed her eyes. A long quiet moment stretched between them, the wind in the trees and the water flowing over smooth rocks lulled her back towards sleep.

"Kara?"

She opened her eyes again, found him watching her with a troubled expression.

"How long do you think you'll be staying…with me?"

It was unclear whether he meant the tent or Earth or something more, but the words and his tone somehow reminded her of the conversation she'd had on the observation deck with another him in another time.

She answered him the same as she had then, "For as long as you'll have me, I guess." The silence stretched between them while she waited. At length, he spoke again.

"That's going to be a very long time then, Kara." His tone was light, almost teasing, but his eyes were solemn. It was both warning and promise.

The resemblance of his words to those in a memory only she had lived through took her breath for a moment. She raised up on an elbow, looking for some sign of recognition, of _knowing_, on his face. There was none.

It was simply something Lee would say.

At length, she laid back down, laid her head on his arm.

_Hundreds of Mornings later…_

Kara strolled up the now clear path, headed for the little rustic cottage up ahead. It was still hot today, though the amber sun was disappearing into the horizon, and the shadows grew long.

She hitched up the gear she carried on her back, trying to ease her aching shoulders. It had been a tough practice. The usual sounds of nature floated to her ears, she could just make out the sound of rushing water in the stream off to her left.

Kara turned towards a sound of movement in the shrubbery just off the path. She always had her sidearm if she needed it, wildlife around here was not always of the friendlier sort. A particularly large bird-a crane of some sort- stepped out and crossed the path in front of her. She relaxed her stance and moved her right hand back to grip her rucksack, smirking. Crisis averted.

She kicked a few stray stones that edged the walkway back into place as she neared the house and pushed open the door.

It was cooler inside, the familiar smells of home washing over her. The tang of wood coupled with the aroma of herbs and spices. Clean soap and meals cooked. Love and family.

She shut the door behind her and dropped her bag onto the floor with a thump.

Her eyes sought them out immediately. He was stretched out on the floor on his side, with their baby boy sitting in front. They were both engrossed in something lying on the floor between them.

She walked around the little kitchen area and stood, surveying them both. The two things in her life she knew she'd done right.

Lee looked up, smiling for her, "Hey. You're back early." He turned back to the baby, "Look who's home early, champ."

Kara sat down gratefully, carefully easing her tired muscles into a similar position as Lee's. She lay across from him with the baby in the little space between.

She picked up her baby's pudgy fingered hand, kissed the tiny knuckles, "Hey, buddy."

"How did it go?"

She glanced over at him, "Sam's team doesn't stand a chance."

The side of his mouth curled up, "I don't doubt it."

She shrugged a little, smoothing the downy wisps of their son's sandy brown hair, "So many people came out to watch the last game, Helo's thinking about asking people to pay a small fee for the upcoming re-match."

Lee chuckled, "Is Helo acting as team manager now?"

Kara's grin was tired, "Only if we go pro."

"You'd dominate the league," Lee teased.

Kara's smile took on a smirking quality, "There's already three teams. A fourth is forming. Laugh it up, pretty boy, but one of these days I might be bringing home the bacon with this gig."

Lee's eyes took on a fake dreamy quality, "Oh, could you, Kara? I really miss bacon. Or maybe a nice ham-"

Kara grabbed a nearby baby toy and hit Lee square in the chest with it. He brushed at the spot where it had hit him and ignored her.

Kara glanced down at what she now saw was a lump of chalk-colored clay. The baby's eyes slapped the rug and followed Lee's movements as he resumed forming it.

"I took a shower on the Zephyr," Kara drew feather light circles on the baby's back, "You should have seen the line. I can't wait until we all have working showers of our own."

Lee was concentrating on the clay pretty hard now, he glanced up to her face for a second, spoke absently, "At least we have the tree shower out by the stream now."

Kara spoke dryly, brows lowered, "Yes, Lee. I've told you several times that was _genius_."

He smiled good-naturedly while continuing to form the clay in his hands. She stared at the shape the clay was forming.

"What exactly is it that you're trying to make?"

"A deer," Lee answered a trifle defensively.

Kara snorted and reached out a hand, "Here, let me do it."

"I've got it."

"You're not doing it right-"

"Kara, _I've got it_."

Lee proudly placed the lump of clay down on the rug. The chubby little baby boy in the center of them let out a pleased chortle.

"That's supposed to be a deer?" she glanced up through her lashes at him, "Looks like a rabbit to me."

Their son slapped a pudgy little palm down next to the clay figure, "Bun. Nee."

Kara snorted again.

Lee frowned, "He heard you."

"I said _rabbit_, Lee. Not bunny."

"I think he's smart enough to figure it out, Kara."

"You mean, unlike his dad- who can't tell the difference between a deer and a rabbit?"

Lee pulled a face, "Funny."

She thought so. Then her stomach growled, distracting her, "Did you guys eat?"

Lee nodded. 

She sighed and pushed herself up off the floor with a bit of a groan. Her muscles ached, the days were long here on Earth.

He looked up at her, "Where are you going?"

She sighed, "To make something to eat."

He stopped her with a hand on her wrist, "Stay here, relax. I'll make you something in a little bit, after he's asleep."

"It's so cute that you think he'll obey the rules of bed time like the rest of us," she teased, but she settled back down next to him anyway. Too tired to move.

The baby was busy smashing the clay into a shapeless lump now, effectively making their argument null and void. He pulled off a little piece and made to put it in his drooling baby mouth.

Kara reached out and snatched it from him. She leaned over and picked him up with a little grunt, tossing him in the air a little and making silly sounds before he could think to cry about his loss. She loved how tiny and solid and soft he was.

"Uh-oh," she muttered suddenly, setting him down on his pudgy little feet.

Lee was busy picking out pieces of smashed clay bits in the rug, "What is it?"

"There's something on dradis," she pulled the baby forward to check his diaper, such as it was.

She nodded, making a face, "Multiple contacts." She could see Lee out of the corner of her eye, lips pressed tight, trying very hard not to laugh. He must still be peeved about the Rabbit Deer.

She blew a strand of blond out of her eyes, "Come on, Joe. Time to launch an attack." She stood, holding the baby, "Wish Baltar would take the time to invent some decent diapers out of soy beans or something while he's at it."

Lee stood too, reaching for the little boy who was gurgling obliviously, "I'll get him."

Kara tilted her head, "Lee. Just because I bit your head off last week does not mean I expect you to change every single diaper from here on out."

"Hey, I know who the boss is," he leaned over and kissed her quickly-warm and smooth, familiar. He pulled back only a little and held there.

She gave him a self-satisfied smile, "Damn straight."

Lee relieved her of her little burden, "C'mere, Ace." He grunted, "Heavy little bundle, isn't he?"

"_You _were a fat baby," she scooped up the blankets and clay, some homemade baby toys, as she spoke, "I've seen the pictures. You're dad takes them out at least once a month."

"Why must you always bring that up?" Lee threw over his shoulder, annoyed, as he carried baby Joseph to the other room.

"To get your reaction," she called after him, walking into the kitchen portion of the large room.

She stood hands on hips, considering the mess left over from the boys' supper. No wonder Lee hadn't wanted her to come in here.

"More work," she muttered. She'd finished none of it when Lee came back in, sans baby.

"Where's Joe?"

"Asleep," Lee leaned against the counter for a moment and watched her. "Sorry about the mess. Want me to make you a sandwich? You eat, I clean up."

Kara looked up from the bread she was slicing, "Already on it." She narrowed her eyes when she saw his suddenly tired expression, "What's wrong, Lee?"

He sighed, scrubbing his face with his hands, "Nothing. I just-every time I pass by his empty room…"

Kara finished her task and swiped at the strands of blond across her forehead, leaning up against the counter next to him and crossing her arms.

"It's been three weeks, Kara."

"It was four and a half weeks time before last, Lee," Kara assured him. It was always hard for him to accept it when his father insisted on trekking to Laura Roslin's resting place ever so often and disappearing for weeks on end.

"He's all alone out there," Lee continued as if she hadn't spoken, rubbing his mouth, "It's not like he's getting any younger…"

"Lee, he doesn't care about the frakking risks, he lost the love of his life," she leaned her shoulder into his, "He needs this. And besides, it's not like we can stop him. He's a grown man."

Lee turned a little towards her, fingering the chain she still wore around her neck, following its length to the tags that fell from it.

"I guess we all grieve in different ways," he whispered. She stood very still, the action surprising her. He rarely ever spoke of what had happened to her when he had been living on New Earth without her. Kara sometimes wondered if she'd just imagined telling him everything, until moments like these when he would startle her with it.

His fingers feathered across her collarbone between the chain thoughtfully. He seemed to give himself a mental shake after a while, then looked up into her eyes and kissed her fiercely. He pulled away before she could respond and abruptly reached around her to grab the plate with the sandwich on it, "Here, eat your food. I'll get this." He gestured around to the dirty dishes.

Kara bit her lip, taking a moment to recover. She glanced at the plate in question, took it from him.

"Don't mind if I do," She turned and sat down at the table. She watched him clean up while she sat chewing contentedly.

Lee cleared his throat, picking up a small bowl of half-eaten potatoes, "We've been eating a lot of potatoes lately, haven't we? Though it still beats the year of the summer squash."

Kara murmured in complete agreement, sinking her teeth into another bite.

"Summer squash pancakes, remember those?" He scrubbed at a dirty pan, back to her.

She lifted a brow, "Those were _your_ idea, Lee."

"Yeah, well. The mashed green bean surprise was yours," he threw back over his shoulder.

Okay, so that was true. "Frak me, that was awful."

He turned again, eyes narrowed on her, "You know I hate when you do that, Kara."

She smirked, rising with her empty plate, "Do what?"

"Agree with me. It makes me nervous."

Her lips pulled all the way into a mischievous grin, "That's the only reason I ever do it."

He turned back to the dirty dishes, shaking his head.

She walked over and made to hand her plate for him to wash, but it slipped from her grasp and fell into the greasy dishwater with a splash instead.

He looked down at himself. Splatters of dirty dishwater covered the front of his shirt.

Kara tried not to snicker.

He looked back up at her steadily, "I don't have a lot of clothes, Kara."

"Guess you'll have to go around shirtless then, won't you?" She raised her brows suggestively, her mouth falling open on a silent laugh. She backed away to grab another dirty dish on the counter.

He was suppressing a smile, she could tell. Flirting always put him in a good mood. She could win every argument that way when she wanted to.

He pulled the sodden fabric away from his chest with two fingers and stared at her accusingly, still trying not to smile. She decided she wanted to now.

"Want me to help you with that, Apollo?" she walked up to him and grabbed him by the shirt front, walking backwards until she felt the table behind her. She released him and placed her palms on either side of her to hop up onto it, but he beat her to it, lifting her up easily and setting her down.

"Is this the part where you have your way with me?" he watched her hands as she carefully undid the buttons of his shirt. She clamped him on either side with her thighs and pulled him even closer. The shirt hit the floor. She took him in. She'd only been half kidding about wanting him to go shirtless all the time.

She tilted her head, playful now. "You always were a quick learner," she said through a grin, running her hands over his warm chest before placing palms on the back of his neck to pull him down to her.

He resisted, gently reaching up to take her hands from his nape with his own. His eyes were on hers.

"Not here," he whispered, leaning into her space to nibble on her ear, his hair feathering her cheekbone. Her eyes fluttered shut and she didn't even notice what he was doing until he'd lifted her in his arms.

She threw an arm over his shoulder and played with the ends of his hair, "Where are we going?"

He carried her into their bedroom and shut the door most of the way. Laying her down on the bed, he spoke calmly, "Somewhere where I can watch you sleep when its over." His dark head lowered and he stole a greedy kiss that was deep and long and heated her blood. He pulled back to look over her face, "Where I can wake up to you there."

"Is that important?" She joked breathlessly, trying to pull his head back to hers, touching his lower lip with the tip of her tongue.

His hands came up and cradled her face ever so carefully. Treasured.

"Kara, sometimes I think that's the best part."

Fin.


End file.
